Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
BBC: Thousands of people are gathering in Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest against a decision by the ruling military council to assume new powers.The protests have been called by the Muslim Brotherhood, as it claims its candidate Mohammed Mursi won last weekend's presidential election.
His rival, former PM Ahmed Shafiq, also says he has won.
As Egyptians voted, the generals dissolved parliament and claimed all legislative power for themselves.
Correspondents say the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) appears to be working on the assumption that Mr Mursi will win, and making moves designed to reduce or constrain the power of the president and entrench its own.
Activists have described the moves as a "military coup". » | Tuesday, June 19, 2012
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Saturday, June 02, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: Egyptians react with dismay as former president is convicted on lesser charge and given sentence 'wide open' to appeal
Egypt's stuttering revolution has taken a dramatic new turn after Hosni Mubarak, the country's all-powerful dictator for 30 years, was sentenced to life imprisonment for enabling the massacre of protesters who rose up against his rule.
But initial euphoria at the historic verdict – the first time an Arab leader has ever been deposed, tried and convicted by his own people – quickly gave way to confusion and then fury on the streets as full details of the court judgement emerged.
Watched by tens of millions on live television, the judge, Ahmed Refaat, declared that neither Mubarak nor any other defendants in the so-called "trial of the century" were responsible for ordering the lethal assault by security forces last January and February that left almost a thousand demonstrators dead, and that the toppled autocrat and his former interior minister Habib al-Adly were guilty only of not using their high political office to put a stop to the bloodshed.
All other charges, which included profiteering and economic fraud, were dismissed, allowing key members of Mubarak's family and security apparatus – including his two sons Gamal and Alaa and several top security officials – to walk free. Legal experts claimed the ruling left Mubarak's life sentence "wide open" to appeal, and political analysts said the outcome was a victory for the deep state and a sign of the old regime reasserting its grip over the country.
"The verdict shows that they are quite willing to cut off the heads of the regime and throw them to the dogs in an effort to preserve the rest," argued Issandr el-Amrani, a columnist on Egyptian affairs who blogs as the Arabist. » | Jack Shenker and Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo | Saturday, June 02, 2012
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Saturday, January 07, 2012
The Coptic Orthodox celebration follows an escalation in violence against the minority, an estimated 10 per cent of Egypt’s 85 million people, over the past year.
Many Christians blamed a series of street clashes, assaults on churches, and other attacks on radical Islamists who have become increasingly bold after Mr. Mubarak’s downfall.
Celebrations of Orthodox Christmas began with a late night Friday Mass at Cairo’s main cathedral, which was attended by prominent figures from across Egypt’s political spectrum. They included leaders of Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group whose associated political party has won nearly half the seats in parliament. » | Sarah El Deeb | The Associated Press | CAIRO | Saturday, January 07, 2012
Thursday, January 05, 2012
BBC: Prosecutors at the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have demanded he be given the death penalty.
Mr Mubarak is being tried in Cairo on charges of ordering the killing of protesters during unrest which led to his overthrow in February.
"The law foresees the death penalty for premeditated murder," prosecutor Mustafa Khater said, AFP reports.
The demand also applies for former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly and six other former security chiefs.
Mr Mubarak's two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and Alaa, face corruption charges in the same trial.
"How could the president of the republic not be aware of the demonstrations that broke out on January 25th?", chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman asked, according to AFP.
Mr Suleiman went on to argue that the then interior minister Habib el-Adly, who is also on trial, could "not have given the order to fire on demonstrators without having been instructed to do so by Mubarak." » | Thursday, January 05, 2012
Saturday, November 26, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Egypt's political crisis deepened on Friday as the US urged the military to give up power immediately and protesters laid siege to the Cabinet office in Cairo.
The demonstrators were trying to prevent a new prime minister, derided as a stooge of the military leadership, from taking up his post. For the seventh successive day, a vast crowd thronged the city's Tahrir Square to press their demand for an immediate restoration of civilian rule.
More than 100,000 people heeded a call for a show of force at the landmark.
The White House said the transfer of power to a civilian government in Egypt must be "just and inclusive" and take place "as soon as possible".
In a significant increase of pressure on the ruling generals, Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said: "The United States strongly believes that the new Egyptian government must be empowered with real authority immediately."
The US provides $1.3 billion (£900 million) in aid to the Egyptian military each year. It has repeatedly called for restraint on both sides despite evidence of brutal tactics by the military. » | Adrian Blomfield, Cairo | Friday, November 25, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Egypt's cabinet was forced to hold crisis talks on Sunday as military police battled with protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, demanding an end to army rule.
Hundreds of soldiers and police, backed by armored personnel carriers, used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to evict several thousand protesters, presenting Egypt's ruling generals with their biggest security challenge yet, a week before parliamentary elections.
Demonstrators in Cairo chanted: "The people want to topple the regime" as they rushed at police, who fired rubber bullets and teargas. Protesters clashed with police in two other cities.
Two people were killed and hundreds wounded in clashes on Saturday night reminiscent of some of the worst violence during the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February. » | Sunday, November 20, 2011
The photo, which the 20-year-old former student first posted on her blog, shows her naked apart from a pair of thigh-high stockings and some red patent leather shoes.
It was later posted on Twitter with the hashtag #nudephotorevolutionary. The tweet was viewed over a million times, while Elmahdy's followers jumped from a few hundred to more than 14,000.
Her actions have received global media coverage and provoked outrage in Egypt, a conservative Muslim country where most women wear the veil. Many liberals fear that Elmahdy's actions will hurt their prospects in the parliamentary election next week.
Elmahdy describes herself as an atheist. She has been living for the past five months with her boyfriend, blogger Kareem Amer, who, in 2006 was sentenced to four years in a maximum security prison for criticizing Islam and defaming former president Hosni Mubarak.
Here she talks exclusively to CNN in Cairo about why she posed nude.
CNN: Why did you post a photo of yourself nude photo on Twitter, and why the red high heels and black stockings?
Elmahdy: After my photo was removed from Facebook, a male friend of mine asked me if he may post it on Twitter. I accepted because I am not shy of being a woman in a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman.
The photo is an expression of my being and I see the human body as the best artistic representation of that. I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal camera. The powerful colors black and red inspire me. » | Mohamed Fadel Fahmy for CNN | Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
In the 19 or so centuries since Christianity first took root in Egypt, the ritual of mourning has become an all-too-familiar experience for the majority of the country’s Coptic community. Egypt’s eight million Copts may claim to be their nation’s oldest surviving indigenous faith, but that has not spared them from prolonged periods of persecution, most recently at the hands of Islamist militants.
In many respects, the tone was set for nearly two millennia of oppression of the Copts, one of the world’s oldest Christian sects, by the martyrdom of St Mark the Evangelist, the disciple who established the Christian faith in Alexandria just a few years after the ascension of Christ.
The establishment of a new religion was bitterly resented by the city’s pagan population, who feared it would turn Alexandrians away from the worship of their traditional gods. They exacted their revenge on Easter Monday in 68 AD when Roman soldiers put a rope around St Mark’s neck and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria until he was dead.
These days the methods used to persecute Egypt’s Copts might not be so primitive, but their overall effect is no less barbaric. During the latest outbreak of Coptic-related violence in Cairo on Sunday night, several Copts are reported to have been crushed to death by the tracks of an armoured military vehicle that ploughed into a group of protesters as they sang hymns and held aloft the Cross. Read on and comment » | Con Coughlin | Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Egypt's military leaders are under intense international pressure to explain the deaths of more than 20 Christian protesters after the army was accused of deliberately fostering sectarian hatred to disguise a power grab.
Video footage and independent testimony that emerged on Monday called into question army claims that its soldiers acted in self-defence when they killed 26 protesters, the vast majority of them Christian Copts, in central Cairo on Sunday evening.
Although Coptic protesters threw stones at soldiers during the confrontation, a number of witnesses, many of them Muslim, claimed that the army's response was either wholly unwarranted or grotesquely disproportionate.
A number of the dead were crushed to death by an armoured car that ploughed into a group of protesters as they sang hymns and held aloft the Cross, according to several accounts that were given additional credence by the condition of several corpses in a Coptic mortuary.
The soldiers were also accused of opening fire at the protesters, prompting accusations that orders had been given to kill without discrimination.
Coptic leaders yesterday called on their followers to observe a three-day fast, but in many parts of Egypt's Christian community, mourning has already given way to anger. Continue reading and comment » | Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Monday, October 10, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Cairo has had a horrific night with 24 people killed and at least 174 injured in clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians that have clouded hopes the nation will return to peace and liberty after Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.
It started out as a peaceful demonstration. Some 10,000 Christians and Muslims had taken to the streets together to protest against recent violence against Christians in Egypt. They had planned to congregate at the state television building north of Tahrir Square but the marchers were attacked before they reached it.
"Stones were thrown at us and there were shots," said Alfred Raouf, a Coptic Christian who was among the demonstrators. "We were shocked." That was only the beginning. The situation escalated in front of the television building. It is unclear who triggered the clashes. "When we arrived, the military immediately started attacking us with tear gas and truncheons," said Beshoy Fayez, a demonstrator.
Other eyewitnesses reported that the crowd threw stones at the security forces, and that a policeman was surrounded and beaten up. "We weren't armed," said Raouf, "we were demonstrating against violence." He said violent thugs had infilitated the marchers to stir trouble. Others [sic] demonstrators agreed with Raouf. » | Viktoria Kleber in Cairo | Monday, October 10, 2011
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Sunday, October 09, 2011
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: At least six people were killed as fierce clashes erupted between Christians protesting over a recent attack on a church and the Egyptian military on Sunday night.
The dead included four protesters and two soldiers, state media reported, and 40 people were injured in the riots outside the state television building along the Nile in the capital Cairo.
Witnesses said some of the protesters may have snatched weapons from the soldiers and turned them on the military. The protesters also pelted the soldiers with rocks and bottles.
The clashes spread to nearby Tahrir Square and the area around it, drawing in thousands of people. At one point, a group of youths with at least one riot policeman among them dragged a protester by his legs for a long distance.
The protesters, Coptic Christians angry over a recent attack on a church, said their demonstration began as a peaceful attempt to sit in at the television building. But then, they said they came under attack by thugs in plainclothes who rained stones down on them and fired pellets.
"The protest was peaceful. We wanted to hold a sit-in, as usual," said Essam Khalili, a protester wearing a white shirt with a cross drawn on it. "Thugs attacked us and a military vehicle jumped over a sidewalk and ran over at least 10 people. I saw them." » | Sunday, October 09, 2011
AL MASRY AL YOUM: Live Updates: Death toll rises as Copts clash with military » | Sunday, October 09, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: Cairo riots claim 19 lives: Christians protesting attack on church in southern Egypt attacked by armed mobs in latest unrest to hit country » | Associated Press in Cairo | Sunday, October 09, 2011
REUTERS.COM: Twenty three killed as Egyptian Christians, police clash: Twenty three people were killed in Cairo Sunday, the health ministry said, when Christians, some carrying crosses and pictures of Jesus, clashed with military police in the latest sectarian flare-up in a country in political turmoil. » | Dina Zayed and Patrick Werr | Sunday, October 09, 2011
LE MONDE: Egypte : une manifestation de Coptes dégénère au Caire – Une manifestation de Coptes a dégénéré au Caire, dimanche 9 octobre, provoquant la mort de trois policiers selon la télévision publique, et d'au moins seize manifestants selon l'AFP. Les Coptes, qui représentent 10 % de la population égyptienne, accusent des islamistes radicaux d'avoir partiellement démoli une église dans la province d'Assouan la semaine dernière. Ils ont manifesté pourdemander le renvoi du gouverneur à qui ils reprochent de n'avoir pas su protégerleur lieu de culte. » | LEMONDE.FR avec Reuters | Dimanche 09 Octobre 2011
WELT ONLINE: Viele Tote bei heftigen Kopten-Protesten in Kairo: Tausende Christen demonstrieren in Kairo gegen die Zerstörung einer Kirche in Assuan. Bei Zusammenstößen mit Sicherheitskräften kommen mindestens 21 Menschen ums Leben. » | Autor: Maggie Michael | Sonntag 09. Oktober 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
REUTERS: Israeli envoy leaves after Cairo embassy attack: Israel flew its ambassador home on Saturday after Egyptians stormed the building housing the Israeli mission in Cairo, plunging Egypt's ruling army deeper into its toughest diplomatic crisis since taking over from Hosni Mubarak. » | Yasmine Saleh and Mohamed Abdellah | CAIRO | Saturday, September 10, 2011
YNET NEWS: Embassy riots: Israeli envoy leaves Egypt » | Attila Somfalvi | Friday, September 09, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Egypt on high alert after deadly attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo: Egypt is on high alert after an attack by hundreds of protesters on the Israeli embassy in Cairo left three people dead and hundreds injured. » | Saturday, September 10, 2011
Watch The Daily Telegraph video here
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Tensions avec Israël: l'Egypte adopte l'état d'urgence: LE CAIRE | Après les violentes attaques de l'ambassade d'Israël au Caire, l'Egypte a adopté l'état d'urgence pour assurer la sécurité du pays. » | AFP | Samedi 10 Septembre 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Riot police stand aside as motorists and residents in Cairo attack Coptic Christian demonstrators who set up a roadblock to press for more security after deadly sectarian clashes a week ago.Reporting from Cairo—
Scores of mostly Coptic Christian protesters were injured when their weekend demonstration blocking a street near the heart of downtown Cairo was attacked by motorists and residents as riot police stood by, prompting new questions about the ability and willingness of Egypt's military-led government to maintain security.
The attacks came hours after an explosion at the tomb of a Muslim saint in the northern Sinai town of Sheik Zweid and a week after sectarian clashes left 15 dead and 200 injured.
The violence erupted late Saturday on Cairo's busy corniche road that runs parallel to the Nile, within view of the balconies and terraces of the Marriott, Hilton and other major hotels frequented by foreign tourists.
For days, the protesters camped out on the street to call for government protection after a church was burned, sparkingdeadly clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Imbaba area of the city.
Late Saturday, crowds rushed in, lobbing gasoline bombs and charging at the several hundred demonstrators. The attackers also burned cars and trucks. Nearly 80 people were injured, including two with gunshot wounds, according to witnesses and the national health minister. » | Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times | Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A priest whose church was at the centre of sectarian riots at the weekend has said Egyptian Christians were "under organised attack" as religious authorities warned the country was at risk of civil war.Armed troops and riot police guarded the streets around St Mena's church and nearby burned-out shops and apartment blocks in the impoverished, crumbling Cairo suburb of Imbaba.
Inside, Father Cherubim Awad said a conspiracy was the only possible explanation for the violence that had engulfed relations between Christians and Muslims in recent weeks.
"Five churches were attacked on the same night," he said. "From the beginning of this year we have had all these attacks in a short space of time.
"There is some hidden hand behind this, whether from inside the country or outside it."
The street battles, which began on Saturday evening outside his church, demonstrated the breakdown in law and order in parts of Egypt that began during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February.
The police failed to intervene, while Fr Cherubim said that, after several hours, the army moved in to protect the church but not the surrounding buildings, and refused to try to break up the warring sides.
Sectarian violence has increased in Egypt. It began with a church bombing in Alexandria before the uprising began, but has worsened since.
A large gang of Salafi Muslims – followers of a purist sect to which most Islamist terrorist groups are aligned – led the attack on St Mena's, claiming a Christian woman who had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim was being held inside against her will.
"They performed evening prayer 200 metres from the church and after they finished they started shouting 'We want you to leave', meaning the Copts," Fr Cherubim said.
"They were shouting 'Islamiya, Islamiya, Islamiya, with our souls and blood we sacrifice ourselves for the crescent'. » | Richard Spencer, Cairo | Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
Christians marching against the military in the Egyptian capital and calling for more rights have come under attack.
While some blamed hardline Muslims, others said the attack is symptomatic of rampant lawlessness in the country following the revolution that overthrew long-time leader, Hosni Mubarak.
Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Egypt's caretaker government has held crisis talks after attacks by Muslim mobs on Coptic Christian churches in Cairo left at least 12 people dead and drove the country's growing religious tensions to the brink.The riots, in Imbaba, a poor, densely populated district in the city, have heightened fears that a power vacuum following Hosni Mubarak's overthrow will lead to a power grab by Islamic fundamentalists, more sectarian strife and a collapse in law and order.
The prime minister, Essam Sharaf, called an emergency cabinet meeting after postponing a tour of Gulf oil states intended to win Egypt desperately needed financial support, three months after the uprising.
Following the meeting Abdel Aziz al-Gindi, the justice minister, said: "We will strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation's security." He promised to protect places of worship from attack.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has ruled the country since Mr Mubarak's enforced resignation on February 11, announced the arrest of 190 people yesterday and said they would be tried before military tribunals.
Muslim protesters had tried to storm the St Mena's church in Imbaba on Saturday evening, claiming Christians were holding against her will a woman who had converted to Islam and married a Muslim. » | Samer al-Atrush in Cairo | Sunday, May 08, 2011
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