Egypt’s military went on the defensive Wednesday over the weekend killing of 25 people, mainly Coptic Christians, saying troops would not fire on citizens and denying they crushed protesters with armoured vehicles. Coptic witnesses said they were fired upon by soldiers and that several protesters were killed when military armoured vehicles ran them over. Amid growing anger at the deaths, General Adel Umara denied at a news conference that military vehicles ran down demonstrators. “This cannot be attributed to the armed forces, and this cannot be recorded in history, that the armed forces ran over people,” he said. Umara said “that maybe someone was hit” by an armoured personnel carrier (APC) by mistake, but he would not confirm that.
Another general, Mahmud Hegazi, said Egyptian soldiers never fire on citizens, and if they did use their weapons the results would be catastrophic. “The armed forces cannot direct their fire at the people,” Hegazi told the news conference, called after armed forces and thugs clashed with Coptic Christian protesters on Sunday, leaving 25 people dead and more than 300 hurt. He said military weapons “were deadly,” and “if these weapons are used the consequences would be catastrophic, and that has not happened.”
General Umara also said that the soldiers “did not have live bullets.” The military displayed video footage of violent protesters outside the state television building, where most of the carnage took place. Coptic witnesses said soldiers shot at them and that several protesters were killed when military armoured vehicles ran them over.
In the aftermath, an AFP correspondent saw two corpses that had clearly been crushed. Witnesses said they were crushed by an APC. The carnage has brought fears of an eruption of sectarian violence, sparked by a recent attack on a renovated village church in the southern province of Aswan that led to Sunday’s deadly Cairo protest.
The clashes have brought growing anger in the Arab world’s most populous country, along with condemnation abroad.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr and conveyed “the need for the Egyptian government to ensure that the fundamental rights of all Egyptians are respected, including the rights of religious freedom, peaceful assembly and the end of military trials for civilians, and that efforts be made to address sectarian tensions.”
