Egyptian riot police fired volleys of tear gas and locked down Tahrir Square and several other Cairo streets as clashes briefly broke out in a rare push by Islamist supporters of the ousted president to take control of the square.
With lines of armoured vehicles and barbed wire, troops sealed off the square and diverted traffic after the Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which ousted president Mohammed Morsi hails, called on its supporters to march there.
Thousands of Mr Morsi’s supporters followed suit from different parts in the city, chanting “El-Sissi is the enemy of God” and “Down with the murderer!” Those were references to Defence Minister Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who forced Mr Morsi from power on July 3 after millions took to the streets demanding he step down. In its statements, the Muslim Brotherhood called Tahrir Square “the capital of the revolution”. It is the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that forced long-time president Hosni Mubarak from power and led to Mr Morsi’s short-lived tenure.
Since Mr Morsi’s ousting, nearly 2,000 Muslim Brotherhood members have been arrested, its top leaders referred to courts over charges of inciting murder and violence. Mr Morsi himself has been detained incommunicado.
The Brotherhood is demanding the reinstatement of Mr Morsi as president and the restoration of his constitution.
In an attempt to turn tomorrow – a national holiday seen by Egyptians as a military victory in the 1973 war with Israel – into a milestone, the group called upon its supporters to converge into Tahrir Square in a show of force.
Meanwhile, state media and anti-Islamist private networks aired national songs around the clock with documentaries of the war glorifying the military.
Protesters encircled security forces and army troops guarding Tahrir Square from two main entrances, one near the Egyptian museum and a second from the square’s southern edge. That prompted riot police to fire volleys of tear gas to send the demonstrators away.
All the way to Tahrir Square, the protesters’ chants against the military sparked clashes with civilians believed to be supporters of the military. Shots were fired and rocks were thrown.
Protesters were pushed away by other Egyptians armed with sticks and bottles who chased them in the streets before the two sides started hurling stones just steps from the Egyptian museum. “We will go protest and take all streets possible,” said Mohammed Said, 45, during a march from the Dokki district to Tahrir. “We will get in Tahrir at any price.”
There was little sympathy for the protesters among bystanders in the area. “None of the people here stands with them,” said Ahmed Youssef, a 59-year-old taxi driver. “I wish the state really enforces the state of emergency and outlaws all kinds of protests. We can’t live normally this way,” he said.
Across the country, similar clashes broke out with police firing tear gas and gunshots in the air as residents and protesters clashed and threw stones at each other. Earlier in the day, at least two soldiers were killed in an attack by suspected militants on an army convoy east of Cairo.