CAIRO - The anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 uprising was marked Saturday by a violent display of the country’s divisions, as crowds danced at government-backed rallies and security forces crushed demonstrations by rival Islamists and some secular activists.
Clashes nationwide killed at least 29 protesters, health officials said. The starkly contrasting scenes reflect the three years of turmoil in Egypt since the revolution began and ultimately toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, replacing him with a transitional military council.
Last summer’s millions-strong demonstrations against Mubarak’s elected successor, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, led to a military coup removing him. And as Egypt looks forward to presidential elections later this year, many celebrating Saturday in Tahrir Square demanded that army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi run for president.
“El-Sissi saved the nation. It was up in the air like this helicopter, and he carried it to safety,” said Mervat Khalifa, 62, sitting on the sidewalk and waving to a helicopter overhead.
Military helicopters showered crowds in Tahrir Square with small flags and gift coupons to buy refrigerators, heaters, blankets and home appliances. State-backed rallies also showcased prancing horses and traditional music for ecstatic crowds.
Morsi’s supporters used Saturday’s anniversary to rebuild momentum in their defiance of the military and its political transition plan, despite being hit by a police crackdown and rising public resentment against his Muslim Brotherhood group.
“Anger is bigger than all. Repression sparks revolutions. The burning of Egypt won’t last,” a statement issued by a Brotherhood-led coalition said.
The fiercest clashes raged in an eastern Cairo suburb, where Islamist supporters fought with security forces for hours in street battles. Troops fired over the crowd to disperse protesters who threw gasoline bombs. Protesters set up a field hospital to aid the wounded.
Violence also was strong in the provinces. A car bomb exploded outside a security camp in the city of Suez, where gunmen clashed with police, witnesses said. Nine civilians were wounded in the blast, authorities said.
In neighboring Ismailiya, protesters chanting “down with military rule” battled with security forces. In Alexandria, a female protester was shot and killed during clashes, officials said.
Two protesters were killed in the southern city of Minya, security officials said.
Protesters Mustafa Mohammed and Sami, who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said security personnel and rooftop snipers used live rounds against demonstrators in Alf Maskan, a Cairo suburb. The gunfire struck a natural-gas pipeline three times, Mohammed said.
Sami said protesters threw gasoline bombs in the clashes, which wounded hundreds. Two security officials in the area described the situation as tense and said at least six people were killed. The protesters put the figure at 24. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the figures.
The Way of the Revolution Front, a group opposed to the Islamists as well as the military takeover, urged its supporters to retreat from the streets in the face of what it called “the excessive force that police are using against whoever tries to express their opinion.”
But the government appeared determined to prevent any of the protests or deaths from dimming the spectacle of the rally for el-Sissi or the momentum of his presumed presidential campaign.
The clashes contrasted with scenes of celebration in Tahrir Square and other major squares in provincial capitals, where long lines of demonstrators queued up to enter the tightly secured areas through metal detectors.
Some celebrating wore paper masks with el-Sissi’s picture, and their rallies showed a definite anti-Islamist tone.
Soldiers guarding Tahrir Square joined them in chanting: “The people want the execution of the Brotherhood.” A crowd beat a woman in a conservative head scarf and drove her away, thinking she was a Brotherhood sympathizer.
Crowds also turned on journalists. More than a dozen journalists were beaten by the demonstrators, or detained by police for protection from angry crowds. Demonstrators chased one Egyptian female journalist, mistakenly thinking she worked for satellite news broadcaster Al-Jazeera - seen as pro-Brotherhood. They pulled her hair and tried to strangle her with a scarf until police took her into a building for protection.
Security forces also dispersed rallies by young secular activists who led the 2011 anti-Mubarak uprising and who are critical of the Islamists and the military. A number of their most prominent figures have been detained for months or sentenced to prison amid a campaign to silence even secular voices of dissent.
One prominent activist, Nazly Hussein, was detained by police on the subway as she headed to join one rally downtown, said her mother, Ghada Shahbendar. Hussein’s lawyer, Amr Imam, said that when he went to see her at the police station, a policeman shoved him, pointed his rifle at him and warned him that he had 10 seconds to leave or he’d shoot.
Police used tear gas to disperse one small gathering of secular activists in the Cairo neighborhood of Mohandessin, beating and kicking at least one person, several participants said. The groups later issued an appeal to their supporters to withdraw from street protests because of “excessive violence” by security forces.
“The only thing allowed is el-Sissi revolutionaries,” one of the activists, blogger Wael Khalil, said with a laugh. “Do they think that there will be working democracy this way?”
In its statement, the Brotherhood appealed to secular youth groups to unite with it in protests.
Secular youth groups, however, have shunned the Islamists, whom they equally accuse of undermining the 2011 uprising’s goals while in power.
The rallies took place in an atmosphere of fear, a day after four bombs targeting police killed six people around Cairo. Another 15 people were killed across the country Friday when Morsi’s supporters clashed with security forces. The Interior Ministry said 237 people were arrested during those protests.
The al-Qaida-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, claimed responsibility for Friday’s bombings, warning of coming attacks and telling citizens to stay away from police stations.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and the Brotherhood are publicly critical of each other, but supporters of the new government insist that they are one and the same.
“We tell our dear nation that these attacks were only the first drops of rain, so wait for what is coming,” read the statement, posted on militant websites.
The group warned Egyptians “to stay away from the police and security headquarters,” adding, “We try to avoid inflicting harm to the Muslims.”
The group, based in the lawless Sinai Peninsula, has claimed responsibility for the failed assassination attempt on the interior minister in September and a suicide bombing in a Nile Delta city that killed 16. The group calls its attacks revenge for the killings of pro-Morsi supporters and themilitary offensive in Sinai.
The government has accused the Brotherhood of ultimately being behind the militant violence and declared the group a terrorist organization. It has produced no proof publicly, and the group says the accusation is baseless.
But pro-government media - which means most Egyptian television stations and newspapers - tout the link, and a broad segment of the public is convinced. They note the Brotherhood’s alliances with radicals while Morsi was in office, street violence by his supporters during and after his rule, and the militants’ own pronouncements that they are retaliating for his ouster.
Early Saturday, a bomb exploded next to a police training institute in eastern Cairo, damaging the facility’s walls.
Ahmed Mahmoud, an engineering student living nearby, said angry residents quickly blamed the Brotherhood.
“People were saying they will carry arms and kill all Muslim Brothers who dare to pass by,” he said.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaida’s leader said Egypt’s majority Muslims should not fight their Christian compatriots, and instead focus their efforts on opposing the military-backed authorities who ousted Morsi.
It was a rare call by Ayman al-Zawahri in defense of Christians, who largely supported the popularly backed coup against Morsi and were subsequently targeted by a wave of violence.
In an audio message posted on militant websites,al-Zawahri said it was not in the interest of Muslims to be engaged with the Christians because “we have to be busy confronting the Americanized coup of el-Sissi and establish an Islamic government instead.”
He railed against el-Sissi with particularly strong language, describing him as the same as the military strongmen who have led Egypt over the past 60 years.
Meanwhile, an American translator and an Egyptian filmmaker were detained in Cairo and have been held for three days in an undisclosed location, their lawyer said Saturday.
Ahmed Hassan, a lawyer with the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, said U.S. citizen Jeremy Hodge, 26, of Los Angeles, and Egyptian filmmaker Hossam Eddin el-Meneai, 36, were arrested Wednesday night at their apartment in the Dokki neighborhood of Cairo. Hassan said that officers at the local police station first acknowledged that they were holding the two but later denied that the two were in custody. It is not immediately clear why the two were detained.
The Interior Ministry declined to comment.
Hassan said he thinks the two are being held by Egypt’s National Security Agency, the country’s domestic spy service. He said he has filed a report with authorities saying the two have been “kidnapped.”
Hassan called the detentions part of a “wave of intimidation of journalists” in Egypt. There has been a rise in cases where citizens detain journalists and foreigners amid a growing nationalist fervor and panic over foreign plots to destabilize the country.
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo confirmed that a U.S. citizen was detained and that officials are “providing all appropriate consular assistance,” declining to comment further.
In a separate incident, Egyptian artist and filmmaker Aalam Wassef was briefly detained along with a Swiss citizen on Friday and was later released without being charged, lawyers said. It was not immediately clear why the two were taken from Wassef’s apartment that overlooks Tahrir Square.
Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Michael, Sarah El Deeb, Laura Dean and Maamoun Youssef of The Associated Press; by David D. Kirkpatrick, Marwa Nasser and Mayy El Sheikh of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/26/2014