Army crackdown in Egypt, hundreds dead

[Broomstick]

Are you so sure about the typical Egyptian wanting to be just like "the West"?

I think it's more "we want to be prosperous, secure and free to do business" more than "we want to copy all Western institutions".

^ This

[Siege]

I think they are quietly thankful for the murders which can be blamed on radicals - where has the investigation led, if anywhere at all?

To "hardline Salafist Boubacar Hakim". The assassinations also predictably lead to nationwide strikes and mass protests against the Ennahda government, which is pretty much why I disregard the suggestion that they might be behind these killings. Ennahda are in power, they have no immediate need to kill their opposition, and in fact the assassinations make it massively harder for them to govern -- as martyred opponents are wont to do. They have precisely nothing to be thankful for.

Moreover the suggestion that they are "quietly thankful" is rather a different one than the statement I originally responded to, which suggested that Islamist parties in Tunisia were assassinating secular opponents. Suffice it to say I take less umbrage to the revised statement.

I sympathize with your overall point with regard to the erosion of liberties by religious fundamentalists, and I don't have a clear answer as to what the response to people like Putin should be. The only thing I do know is that responding with the abolishment of democracy and the use of strongman tactics and army coups is not in fact a reversal of that erosion but rather an acceleration of it.

[K. A. Pital]

That's leaving aside the who clitoris removal thing, which I suppose it's possible they don't agree with as I haven't reserached their position on that particular issue but so far I haven't been impressed with how "benign" these guys are.

Actually they are: it is just a problem of traditional customs which some clerics are not willing to challenge (e.g. in Indonesia). Islam in Algeria or elsewhere does not lead to FGM. However, it is true that Islamic clerics are stopping progress against FGM by allying themselves with dark traditions like this - possibly in fear of alienating their devout and backwards followers.

I sympathize with your overall point with regard to the erosion of liberties by religious fundamentalists, and I don't have a clear answer as to what the response to people like Putin should be. The only thing I do know is that responding with the abolishment of democracy and the use of strongman tactics and army coups is not in fact a reversal of that erosion but rather an acceleration of it.

Of course not - I already said that attempts to forcibly secularize a nation without a sound industrial basis and especially a prosperous existence are doomed to fail, since religious resentment will be breeding, and adding class resentment to the mix as well. However, there is no immediate solution to a 'religious revival' and reactionary lawmaking which is backed by the majority. The ones that were used before often ended in a bloodbath like the Vendee or American Civil War - I am not really trying to hide the fact that progressive views often triumphed through war, and sometimes brutal crackdowns - and such actions are out of the question now, when they are self-defeating.

[Thanas]

An update on the situation. Apparently now the Government is denying death certificates, meaning the dead cannot even be buried.

[Broomstick]

That's leaving aside the who clitoris removal thing, which I suppose it's possible they don't agree with as I haven't reserached their position on that particular issue but so far I haven't been impressed with how "benign" these guys are.

Actually they are: it is just a problem of traditional customs which some clerics are not willing to challenge (e.g. in Indonesia). Islam in Algeria or elsewhere does not lead to FGM. However, it is true that Islamic clerics are stopping progress against FGM by allying themselves with dark traditions like this - possibly in fear of alienating their devout and backwards followers.

Egypt has the highest rate of FGM of any nation on the planet, with over 90% of women affected, and the FGM tends to be of the more extreme type (there is a reason that the “barbie-doll” version is called pharonic circumcision), and the tradition goes back thousands of years (Ancient Egyptian mummies have been found with FGM). It's most entrenched in north-east Africa and I don't expect the practice to die out for another couple generations. It pre-dates Islam by several thousand years, it's just a shame that it's become associate with Islam and vice versa. I did post an article recently that claims that FGM rates are slowly starting to come down, and the reasons the practice continues are more complex than simply “conservative Islam”.

An update on the situation. Apparently now the Government is denying death certificates, meaning the dead cannot even be buried.

Doesn't Islam call for the dead to be buried within 24 hours? That could be quite onerous. Add in that embalming never really caught on in Islam (which may have something to do with “bury within 24 hours”) and that is either bordering on cruel or actually cruel.

[FSTargetDrone]

Story and another photo about the above incident are here.

[cosmicalstorm]

The entire region is going further down the crapper every day I look at the news.

Muslim Kristallnacht against the Copts - NYT
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0 ... share&_r=0

Vice take on The Day of Anger
http://www.vice.com/read/death-toll-ris ... etwitterus

The Israelis are nervous
http://www.jpost.com/International/Who- ... ypt-323347

International companies halt operations in Egypt
http://www.timesofisrael.com/internatio ... um=twitter

Atlas Shrugs has a collection of links to anti-christian violence videos
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atla ... blood.html

Our agenda is to wipe out Christians from the North – Nigerian Boko Haram fugitive
http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/08/10/true ... -fugitive/

[Broomstick]

So... is it true that the current Egyptian government will only permit death certificates for the protesters if the cause of death is listed as "suicide"? If so, what a way to drive a point home.

[PeZook]

What a way to escalate and piss everyone off, more like. Maybe that's what they want.

[K. A. Pital]

Indeed, if anything, this will be taken as a personal insult. Which is not exactly good when you already have millions of people who are displeased with you.

[Siege]

If the dead are allowed to be registered with CoD "shot in the face" then it becomes much easier afterward to tally up just many people were killed by 'security forces' (interesting term -- security for whom?). Whoever made this decision is likely worried about having the precise death toll attached to their name, which to me speaks volumes about their confidence with regards to who's going to come out on top.

[Broomstick]

Don't discount the possibility of one party deliberately provoking another party.

[Darth Yan]

I'm just amazed that anyone posted Atlasshrugs; those guys tried to downplay the massacre of bosnian muslims in the past so i don't trust them that much

[Thanas]

Meanwhile, hundreds of Christian homes, business places and churches have been attacked by the muslim brotherhood, many of them burned.

It really is going down the shitter.

[K. A. Pital]

As I heard MB has cancelled actions in Cairo; perhaps they are not willing to be associated with violence, and try to push their will through peaceful means. Even though I despise everything the MB stands for, I think that given the circumstances of their ouster they have a right to rebel, and it is frankly rather strange that the number of casualties is so low. Because if they were a truly radical islamist political force, they would already start a fullscale rebellion to reclaim power.

[Thanas]

They have a right to rebel, they don't have a right to use said rebellion to target minorities.

[wautd]

Meanwhile, hundreds of Christian homes, business places and churches have been attacked by the muslim brotherhood, many of them burned.

It really is going down the shitter.

There's some reports that the Malawi National Museum has been ransacked as well by them. Hopefully those artifacts 'only' got stolen, but if it was done by taliban-wannabees it might as well be destroyed.

[Thanas]

Yeah, just another vindication of the argument that returning artifacts into volatile states serve nothing.

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm just amazed that anyone posted Atlasshrugs; those guys tried to downplay the massacre of bosnian muslims in the past so i don't trust them that much

I'm not so stupid as to buy everything they post but they certainly pick up things here and there that seem to be "forgotten" elsewhere.

[General Mung Beans]

Court orders Mubarak to be released. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world ... wanted=all

Egyptian Court Is Said to Order That Mubarak Be ReleasedBy DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, ALAN COWELL and ROD NORDLAND
CAIRO — A court in Egypt has ordered that former President Hosni Mubarak, who has been detained on a variety of charges since his ouster in 2011, should be set free, according to state media and security officials on Monday, but it remained possible that the authorities would find a way to keep him in detention and his release did not appear imminent.

Egyptian state media reported that Mr. Mubarak would remain in custody for another two weeks under a previous judicial order before the authorities make a decision on his release. The outcome of their deliberations is likely to be read as a pivotal test of the new government installed by General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi and its desire to replicate or repudiate Mr. Mubarak’s rule.

The development threatened to inject a volatile new element into the standoff between the country’s military and the Islamist supporters of the deposed President Mohamed Morsi, as Egypt entered the sixth day of a state of emergency following a bloody crackdown by the military in which hundreds of people have been killed.

It was unclear how Egyptians — particularly those who have welcomed the military action against Mr. Morsi — would respond to the release of a despised autocrat whose downfall united Mr. Mubarak’s secular and Islamist foes. News of the legal maneuvers came at a time of sustained bloodletting.

Just in the past 24 hours, the Egyptian government has acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody, while suspected militants were reported on Monday to have killed at least 24 police officers and wounded 3 others in an attack on their minibuses in the restive northern Sinai region.

Mr. Mubarak, 85, faces an array of legal challenges including allegations of corruption and a retrial on charges of complicity in the murder of protesters whose revolt forced his ouster in February, 2011.

On Monday, Mr. Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, said a court had ordered his release and he might be freed this week. But there was no official confirmation from the military-backed interim government that Mr. Mubarak would be set free.

News reports said that the ambush on Monday morning had occurred in a village near the border town of Rafah. It was the latest in a series of attacks in Sinai since the military forced Mr. Morsi from office on July 3.

The attackers were initially depicted as Islamist militants firing rocket-propelled grenades at the police minibuses.

But there was some confusion, with later reports quoting officials who put the death toll at 25. Officials were also quoted as saying that the officers had been forced from their minibuses, told to lie on the ground and then shot to death. There was no immediate official confirmation of the events.

The Sinai Peninsula borders the Gaza Strip and Israel, which is planning to intensify a diplomatic campaign urging Europe and the United States to support the military-backed government in Egypt despite its deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters, according to a senior Israeli official involved in the effort.

Israeli ambassadors in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and other capitals planned to advance the argument that the military was the only hope to prevent further chaos in Cairo. On another diplomatic front, ambassadors from the 28-member European Union planned to meet on Monday to review the bloc’s relationship with Egypt, confronting a similar question of whether stability and security outweigh considerations relating to human rights and democracy.

In a radio interview on Monday, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said he did not accept that outsiders were powerless to influence events. “But we have to do our best to promote democratic institutions, to promote political dialogue and to keep faith with the majority of Egyptians who just want a free and stable and prosperous country,” he told the BBC.

“What we’ve done in Britain so far is that we have suspended projects with the Egyptian security forces. We have revoked a number of export licenses, and I think then among the European countries we should review together how we try to aid Egypt, what aid and assistance we give to Egypt in the future,” he said. He added, “Foreign policy is often about striking the right balance.”

He described the current crisis as bleak. “I think it will take years, maybe decades, to play out,” he said, “and through that we have to keep our nerve in clearly supporting democracy, democratic institutions, promoting dialogue and there will be many setbacks in doing that and we should not be surprised when they take place.”

On Sunday, there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that since Wednesday have claimed more than 1,000 lives, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid further confrontations, including canceling several protests over the military’s ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations” and said that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

The killings were the latest indication that Egypt is careering into uncharted territory, with neither side willing to back down. Egyptians are increasingly split over the way forward and there is no obvious political solution in sight. The government is considering banning the Brotherhood, which might force the group underground but would not unravel it from the fabric of society it has been part of for eight decades.

Foreign governments also remain divided over the increasingly bloody showdown. American officials said they had taken preliminary steps to withhold financial aid to the Egyptian government, though not crucial military aid, and the European Union said Sunday that the interim government bore the responsibility for bringing the violence to an end.

But the Egyptian military retains the support of the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have pledged billions in aid to the new government.

Although it appeared that security forces were more restrained on Sunday — with no immediate reports of killings in the streets — General Sisi, the country’s military leader, spoke out on national television in defiant and uncompromising tones, condemning the Islamists again as “terrorists” but promising to restore democracy to the country.

The government has been pursuing a relentless campaign to paint the Islamists as a threat, and it has increasingly lashed out at journalists who do not echo that line, especially the foreign news media.

Acknowledging but rejecting the widespread international criticism of the security force’s actions, the general said that “citizens invited the armed forces to deal with terrorism, which was a message to the world and the foreign media, who denied millions of Egyptians their free will and their true desire to change.”

The Muslim Brotherhood had announced that it would stage nine protest marches in and around Cairo on Sunday as part of its “week of departure” campaign that began Friday to protest the military’s deposing of the country’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi.

All but three of the marches were canceled, and even those that continued were rerouted to avoid snipers who were waiting ahead, along with bands of government supporters, the police and the military, some in tanks. The authorities, too, appeared to avoid aggressively enforcing martial law provisions, including a 7 p.m. curfew, that would have led to clashes with the protesters.

Protesters who gathered at the Al Rayyan mosque in the Maadi area of Cairo had aimed to march from there to the Constitutional Court, Egypt’s supreme court. The chief justice, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim president by the country’s military rulers.

Marching in the 100-degree late afternoon heat, the protesters were fatalistic about the threats they faced. Mohammad Abdel Tawab, who said his brother was killed Friday at Ramses Square, had heard the reports of pro-government snipers and gangs ahead. “They will kill us, I know, everybody knows, but it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Protest leaders, however, were more cautious and rerouted the march at the last moment to avoid confrontations.

There were scant details on the prison killings on Sunday, and no explanation for why the victims were inside a prison van and had reportedly taken a prison official hostage.

The Ministry of the Interior issued conflicting and confusing accounts, at one point claiming the prisoners had taken a guard hostage, then saying militants had attacked the prison van to free the prisoners, who were killed in the process, and then saying tear gas being used to suppress the escape had caused the prisoners to suffocate. Later, the ministry claimed the deaths had happened in the prison, not in the van.


David D. Kirkpatrick and Rod Nordland reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from London. Mayy El Sheikh and Kareem Fahim and contributed reporting from Cairo.