Four people dead in new clashes in north Egypt
At least three anti-government protesters and a security guard have been killed in clashes in the Egyptian northern city of Damietta.
The clashes erupted Saturday when security forces launched a raid to arrest and disperse a crowd of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including al-Azhar University students.
Those arrested were mainly accused of engaging in acts of violence in last week’s demonstration in the el-Basarta village, around Damietta. Three of the dead reportedly belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood supporters while later reports suggested a member of the security forces was also killed during the clashes.
Earlier in the day, security guards cordoned off Basarta and arrested many Brotherhood members. The arrested were allegedly involved in the demonstration of last week, which saw more than 30 people, including a child and three police officers, injured while more than a dozen Brotherhood members were also arrested right after the protests.
The new crackdown is viewed as another sign of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s intolerance of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a party designated as a ‘terrorist organization’ in December 2013.
Sisi, the former head of Egypt’s armed forces, led a coup d’état in July 2013, which saw Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, deposed. Morsi, along with hundreds of middle-ranking Muslim Brotherhood members, is currently on trial on a number of charges.
The Egyptian government’s suppression of Morsi’s supporters has led to the deaths of more than 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
Muslim Brotherhood supporters continue to stage protests in different parts of Egypt to condemn what they call the illegal ouster of Morsi and the government’s heavy-handed crackdown his supporters.
MS/HSN/SS
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