[ 2011-07-24 ]

Bloody clashes in Egypt despite democracy pledge
CAIRO (AFP) - Bloody clashes erupted in Cairo on
Saturday between protesters demanding political
change and loyalists of the ruling military
council, hours after the military ruler pledged
democracy.

Riot police fired tear gas at protesters who were
being pelted with rocks and bottles by loyalists
in the Abasseya district near the headquarters of
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which took
power when president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in
February.

One petrol bomb landed near a protester, setting
his clothes on fire, and dozens of injured were
treated by ambulance crews on the scene, an AFP
correspondent said.

The health ministry, in a statement carried by the
official MENA news agency, said 55 people were
injured in the clashes, including six who needed
hospital treatment.

There were chaotic scenes as army loyalists, all
civilians, climbed onto the roofs of buildings and
threw rocks at the protesters.

Soldiers and riot police lined a main street in
Abasseya while army loyalists blocked other
streets in the area, trapping protesters in the
middle.

"We have asked them to let us go -- they've
refused," long-time activist and blogger Wael
Abbas told AFP.

One protester used the microphone in a nearby
mosque to urge the army through the building's
loudspeakers to "protect the protesters."

The clashes came after the ruling military accused
protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square,
singling out the pro-democracy April 6 movement
which helped launch the uprising that toppled
Mubarak, of sowing instability.

"The thugs are surrounding us, the riot police is
with them and the army is doing nothing,"
protester Loai Omran, 40, told AFP.

"But this time, they are going to make us out to
be the traitors," he said, standing on the street
littered with stones and glass.

A military official told state television that
"the armed forces have dealt with restraint,
despite the fact that Tahrir protesters were
pelting the army with stones and bottles."

It was the second time protesters had tried to
reach the SCAF headquarters, after a similar
attempt was prevented overnight.

Hours earlier, Egypt's military ruler said he was
committed to democracy.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of SCAF
and Mubarak's long-time defence minister, pledged
in a television address to work for a free system
through fair elections and a constitution.

He vowed to "pave the way for the pillars of a
democratic state, which promotes freedom, the
rights of citizens through free and fair
parliamentary elections, a new constitution and
the election of a president chosen by the
people."

Tantawi's address came after the SCAF accused the
April 6 pro-democracy movement of sowing strife
after hundreds tried to march to the defence
ministry overnight.

Hundreds of people had left Tahrir Square and
headed for the ministry to denounce the army's
handling of the transition.

They were blocked by hundreds of military police
and armoured vehicles, who closed off large parts
of the capital's centre, a security official
said.

One man was injured, apparently when a blank
cartridge hit his head, a security official said.

Source - AFP

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