Arrest of Anti-Islamist Figures Is Ordered in Egypt
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/world/middleeast/in-egypt-arrest-of-5-anti-islamist-figures-sought.html?_r=0
Arrest of Anti-Islamist Figures Is Ordered in Egypt
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MAYY EL SHEIKH
Published: March 25, 2013
CAIRO — The public prosecutor on Monday ordered the arrest of five anti-Islamist political activists on charges of using social media to incite violence against the Muslim Brotherhood. The order stirred accusations of a vendetta by the group’s close ally, President Mohamed Morsi.
Egyptians are already on guard against the possibility that their first freely elected president may seek to become a new autocrat, and some said they feared that the arrest warrants might be the first clear example that Mr. Morsi’s government was using law enforcement as a political tool to punish his critics.
A search of the online comments by several defendants found no messages urging others to violence. Some, in fact, argued strongly against it.
But the arrests arose out of an attack by anti-Islamist activists on the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo on Friday night. As many as a thousand of the group’s opponents arrived armed with sticks, knives and at least a few guns, and they seemed intent on burning down the headquarters.
A roughly equal number of Brotherhood supporters surrounded the building to defend it, many bused in for the night, and for a time the two sides clashed in the streets. Then an overwhelming force of riot police officers separated the two sides, using tear gas to drive back the attackers. By the end of the night several Brotherhood buses had been burned. Health officials reported more than 100 injuries, although it was impossible to confirm how many were on each side.
Afterward, Mr. Morsi sought to blame his political opponents for the attack and vowed action against those who had incited the violence. In a message on Twitter on Sunday, he castigated opposition leaders, accusing them of “providing a political cover for violence.”
“Whoever is found to be involved in promoting violence through the media will not escape punishment,” Mr. Morsi said in a short speech later on Sunday. He also said he was prepared “to impose exceptional measures to restore domestic order.”
Mr. Morsi’s political opponents have already denounced him since last fall for picking his own public prosecutor, Talaat Ibrahim, by using a presidential decree to circumvent Egyptian law under which a president cannot normally replace a public prosecutor. The appointment immediately raised questions about the potential political use of the post
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I think I miss Hosni Mubarak.
I guess Donald Rumsfeld was right and “freedom is messy”.