CAIRO -- Protesters and police fought pitched battles on Sunday at security headquarters in Cairo as deadly clashes raged into a fourth day and the interior minister leapt to the defence of his reviled forces.
The fighting was sparked by the perceived failure of Egypt's military rulers and police to prevent deadly football-linked violence following a match in the northern city of Port Said on Wednesday that left 74 people dead.
Clashes have been fuelled by police action, including the use of tear gas and birdshot, against protesters, with the health ministry reporting at least 12 people killed in Cairo and Suez since the violence erupted on Thursday.
Hundreds of riot police Sunday blocked roads leading to the interior ministry headquarters in the centre of the capital, facing down youths throwing rocks and petrol bombs on several streets leading the ministry.
Police erected a concrete block wall on Mansur Street, which has become the nerve centre of the deadly clashes, while entrenching themselves behind coils of barbed wire on other roads.
"There is an insistence (by protesters) on storming the the interior ministry and implementing a plot," said Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, whose predecessor was sacked in a cabinet shuffle in November following similar clashes.
"Because of their insistence, we have been placed in the position of defending the ministry," he said.
Ibrahim said police did not want to harm any "revolutionaries" among the protesters, but were prepared to confront others "who want to ruin the country."
Earlier on Sunday, the police had moved on protesters' positions in the rock-strewn streets, firing birdshot and arresting medics at a field hospital, one doctor, Mustafa Nabil, told AFP. The medics were later released, he said.
The protesters denied they intended to storm the ministry, several hundred metres (yards) from Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak a year ago but left the military in charge.
"My heart burned at what happened in Port Said, and we all know that the police are responsible," said one protester, a high school student who gave his name as Ahmed Farag.
"We don't want to storm the ministry. We are protesting here because this is the police headquarters."
Marchers took to the streets nationwide on Friday to demand Egypt's ruling generals cede power immediately, amid charges the military was deliberately sowing chaos to justify its status at the top of the political ladder.
Many of the dead in the Port Said football riot were thought to have been Ahly Ultras -- supporters of Cairo's main club Al-Ahly -- set upon by partisans of the local Al-Masry side after the Cairo team lost 3-1.
The Ultras played a prominent role in the uprising that overthrew Mubarak, and commentators have fed speculation that pro-Mubarak forces were behind the massacre, or at least complicit in it.
Ibrahim responded to the allegation by denying in the press conference that Mubarak's ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly, on trial with the former president for the killings of protesters during the uprising, still had influence.
"Adly is in jail now and has no followers in the ministry," he said.
The military, headed by Mubarak's defence minister of two decades Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has pledged to cede full powers to civilian rule when a president is elected by the end of June.
Its opponents believe it intends to hold on to power behind the scenes after a transfer to civilian rule.
Its increasingly unpopular rule has been challenged by several bloody protests, in which dozens of people were killed between October and December, amid an increase in lawlessness and an economic downturn.
Also Sunday, saboteurs blew up a pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula that supplies Israel with gas, the 12th such attack in a year. Security officials said gunmen planted explosives under the pipeline close to the northern town of El-Arish.
The pipeline attack came the day after an Islamist leader from the area, Mohammed Eid al-Taihi, died in a prison cell in Cairo.
Interior ministry officials said he died from a "drop in blood circulation" and forensic doctors detected no signs of torture.
Taihi was suspected of leading a militant Islamist group responsible for previous pipeline explosions and attacks on police stations in Sinai.
source: interaksyon.com
Showing posts with label Egypt Soccer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt Soccer. Show all posts
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
More than 70 die in Egyptian soccer stampede
Seventy-three people were killed and at least 1,000 injured Wednesday (early Thursday morning, PHL time) when Egyptian soccer fans staged a pitch invasion in the city of Port Said, in what a deputy minister called the biggest disaster in the nation's soccer history.
Violence at football matches across North Africa has increased significantly since political unrest began sweeping the region more than a year ago, and one player described Wednesday's riot as "a war, not football."
Angry politicians and sports officials decried a lack of security at the match between Port Said team al-Masry and Al Ahli, one of Egypt's most successful clubs, and blamed the nation's leaders for allowing, or even causing, the tragedy.
Some enraged Egyptian politicians accused officials still in their jobs after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak of complicity in the tragedy, or at least of allowing a security vacuum in which violence has soared since last year's revolution.
"This is unfortunate and deeply saddening. It is the biggest disaster in Egypt's soccer history," Deputy Health Minister Hesham Sheiha told state television.
Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt's ruling military council, ordered two helicopters to be sent to Port Said to fly out some of the visiting Al Ahli soccer team and its fans, military sources said.
The helicopters would transfer the injured to military hospitals, the sources said.
Egypt's top Muslim cleric called the events a massacre that violated the words and teachings of Islam.
History of rivalry
The violence flared after a match between Port Said team al-Masry and Cairo's Al Ahli, one of Egypt's most successful clubs - whose fans have a history of fierce rivalry.
Witnesses said fighting began after Ahli fans unfurled banners insulting Port Said and one descended to the pitch carrying an iron bar at the end of the match, which al-Masry won 3-1.
Al-Masry fans reacted by pouring onto the pitch and attacking Ahli players before turning to the terraces to attack rival supporters, including "ultra" al Ahli fans who played a leading role in Egypt's revolution last year.
Most of the deaths were among people who were trampled in the crush of the panicking crowd or who fell from terraces, witnesses and health workers said.
Many fans died in a subsequent stampede, while some were flung off their seats onto the pitch and were killed by the fall. Meanwhile, rioting fans fired flares straight into the stands.
Live television coverage showed fans running onto the field and chasing Ahli players. A small group of riot police formed a corridor to try to protect the players, but they appeared overwhelmed and fans were still able to kick and punch the players as they fled.
"This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us. There is no movement and no security and no ambulances," Ahli player Mohamed Abo Treika told his club's television channel.
"I call for the premier league to be cancelled. This is [a] horrible situation and today can never be forgotten."
State television reported that Egypt's football federation had indefinitely suspended premier league matches.
A black day for football
Sepp Blatter, president of the FIFA world soccer federation, expressed his shock at the tragedy. "This is a black day for football. Such a catastrophic situation is unimaginable and should not happen," he said in a statement.
Albadry Farghali, a member of parliament for Port Said, accused officials and security forces of allowing the disaster, saying they still had ties to the government of Mubarak, who was overthrown a year ago.
"The security forces did this or allowed it to happen. The men of Mubarak are still ruling. The head of the regime has fallen but all his men are still in their positions," he screamed in a telephone call to live television.
"Where is the security? Where is the government?"
A number of policemen were among the dead, a medical source and witnesses said.
Many of the fans involved were hardline supporters of Ahli who fought during last year's revolution with police, one of the most hated arms of Mubarak's state.
These "ultras" again battled with police in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square in November and December last year in protests calling for the military to hand over power to civilians immediately.
Hospitals throughout the Suez Canal zone were put on a state of emergency, and dozens of ambulances rushed to Port Said from the Canal cities of Ismailia and Suez, said an official in the zone's local ambulance service.
Another match in Cairo was halted by the referee after receiving news of the violence in Port Said, prompting fans to set parts of the stadium on fire, television footage showed. — Reuters
source:gmanetwork.com
Violence at football matches across North Africa has increased significantly since political unrest began sweeping the region more than a year ago, and one player described Wednesday's riot as "a war, not football."
Angry politicians and sports officials decried a lack of security at the match between Port Said team al-Masry and Al Ahli, one of Egypt's most successful clubs, and blamed the nation's leaders for allowing, or even causing, the tragedy.
Some enraged Egyptian politicians accused officials still in their jobs after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak of complicity in the tragedy, or at least of allowing a security vacuum in which violence has soared since last year's revolution.
"This is unfortunate and deeply saddening. It is the biggest disaster in Egypt's soccer history," Deputy Health Minister Hesham Sheiha told state television.
Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt's ruling military council, ordered two helicopters to be sent to Port Said to fly out some of the visiting Al Ahli soccer team and its fans, military sources said.
The helicopters would transfer the injured to military hospitals, the sources said.
Egypt's top Muslim cleric called the events a massacre that violated the words and teachings of Islam.
History of rivalry
The violence flared after a match between Port Said team al-Masry and Cairo's Al Ahli, one of Egypt's most successful clubs - whose fans have a history of fierce rivalry.
Witnesses said fighting began after Ahli fans unfurled banners insulting Port Said and one descended to the pitch carrying an iron bar at the end of the match, which al-Masry won 3-1.
Al-Masry fans reacted by pouring onto the pitch and attacking Ahli players before turning to the terraces to attack rival supporters, including "ultra" al Ahli fans who played a leading role in Egypt's revolution last year.
Most of the deaths were among people who were trampled in the crush of the panicking crowd or who fell from terraces, witnesses and health workers said.
Many fans died in a subsequent stampede, while some were flung off their seats onto the pitch and were killed by the fall. Meanwhile, rioting fans fired flares straight into the stands.
Live television coverage showed fans running onto the field and chasing Ahli players. A small group of riot police formed a corridor to try to protect the players, but they appeared overwhelmed and fans were still able to kick and punch the players as they fled.
"This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us. There is no movement and no security and no ambulances," Ahli player Mohamed Abo Treika told his club's television channel.
"I call for the premier league to be cancelled. This is [a] horrible situation and today can never be forgotten."
State television reported that Egypt's football federation had indefinitely suspended premier league matches.
A black day for football
Sepp Blatter, president of the FIFA world soccer federation, expressed his shock at the tragedy. "This is a black day for football. Such a catastrophic situation is unimaginable and should not happen," he said in a statement.
Albadry Farghali, a member of parliament for Port Said, accused officials and security forces of allowing the disaster, saying they still had ties to the government of Mubarak, who was overthrown a year ago.
"The security forces did this or allowed it to happen. The men of Mubarak are still ruling. The head of the regime has fallen but all his men are still in their positions," he screamed in a telephone call to live television.
"Where is the security? Where is the government?"
A number of policemen were among the dead, a medical source and witnesses said.
Many of the fans involved were hardline supporters of Ahli who fought during last year's revolution with police, one of the most hated arms of Mubarak's state.
These "ultras" again battled with police in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square in November and December last year in protests calling for the military to hand over power to civilians immediately.
Hospitals throughout the Suez Canal zone were put on a state of emergency, and dozens of ambulances rushed to Port Said from the Canal cities of Ismailia and Suez, said an official in the zone's local ambulance service.
Another match in Cairo was halted by the referee after receiving news of the violence in Port Said, prompting fans to set parts of the stadium on fire, television footage showed. — Reuters
source:gmanetwork.com
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