Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on August 14, 2013
Egypt declares state of emergency
Announcement comes amid security crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters which left at least 95 people dead nationwide.
A state of emergency has been declared across Egypt, according to a presidential statement announced on state television.
The state of emergency will begin at 4pm local time (14:00 GMT) and will last for a month, the statement said on Wednesday afternoon.
The exceptional measures came as “the security and order of the nation face danger due to deliberate sabotage, and attacks on public and private buildings and the loss of life by extremist groups,” the presidency said.
Interim president Adly Mansour “has tasked the armed forces, in cooperation with the police, to take all necessary measures to maintain security and order and to protect public and private property and the lives of citizens.”
The announcement came amid a deadly crackdown by security forces on two Cairo protest camps set up by supporters of Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
Conflicting reports have emerged over the number of people killed on Wednesday.
The Health Ministry said 95 people were killed in clashes that happened nationwide, with another 974 injured.
However, some members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood said the death toll was as high as 2,200, with about 10,000 injured.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the Brotherhood’s figure.
Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, said the military has now been given “a mandate by cabinet to play an active role in the crackdown, if the situation escalates, and we have seen that the situation has escalated.”
“It is a very worrying situation, and the state of emergency only serves to highlight the very precarious situation.”
Journalists killed
Ammar Beltagi, the son of Mohammad Beltagi, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, told Al Jazeera his 17-year-old sister, Asmaa, was shot and killed in the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in in Nasr City.
Two journalists were also killed while covering the violence. Mick Deane, a cameraman for the UK-based Sky News channel, and Habiba Abd Elaziz, a reporter for the UAE-based Xpress newspaper, died from gunshot wounds.
Live footage from Cairo on Wednesday morning showed smoke engulfing Nahda Square, the smaller of the two sit-ins based in Giza, amid reports of tear gas and birdshots being used on supporters of the deposed president.
By mid-morning, the Interior Ministry said security forces had “total control” over Nahda Square, and that “police forces had managed to remove most of the tents” in the area. Security forces had blocked all access to the protest camp.
In an afternoon press conference, the cabinet media adviser thanked the security forces for “exercising self-control and high-level professionalism in dispersing the sit-ins,” and held the Muslim Brotherhood responsible for “escalation and violence”.
Witnesses said that after firing tear gas into the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in, pandemonium struck among the thousands of protesters who had set up camp there soon after Morsi was ousted by the army on July 3.
Automatic fire
Protesters have camped in Cairo demanding the reinstatement of Morsi, who was country’s first democratically elected president and his Freedom and Justice Party was the largest political group in the now dissolved parliament.
Clashes quickly erupted between protesters and security forces on one side of the camp, with automatic fire reverberating across the square. It was not immediately clear who was shooting.
| This battle is much bigger than what you’re seeing and the casualties. This is a fight for the future of the country, and something that will determine the course of the Egyptian revolution that has been going on for two years now.
Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo |
Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said: “This battle is much bigger than what you’re seeing and the casualties. This is a fight for the future of the country, and something that will determine the course of the Egyptian revolution that has been going on for two years now.
“No one expected this to be an easy operation. It became very clear that both sides were engaged in a battle of wills and a dangerous game of brinkmanship.”
Television footage showed the injured being carried to a makeshift medical centre as well as police dragging away protesters, who had defied numerous ultimatums by the army-installed authorities to end their demonstrations.
Police barred journalists not already in the camp from entering.
In response to the security operation, the Muslim Brotherhood urged Egyptians to take to the streets across the country to “stop a massacre”.
Al Jazeera’s D. Parvaz, reporting from a makeshift hospital near the Rabaa sit-in, said that “no one is willing to give up, and that the gunshots are not going to scare them”.
She said the hospital, which has been set up in the entrance of a local mosque, has been receiving a steady stream of wounded people.
“They are bringing in a steady stream of gunshot victims, of all ages, with wounds everywhere.”
“At least four people have died from their wounds in the period I’ve been here.”
14 Comments on "Egypt declares state of emergency"
Arthur on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 3:30 pm
“Morsi, who was country’s first democratically elected president and his Freedom and Justice Party was the largest political group in the now dissolved parliament.”
Egyptian democracy killed by military junta, backed by the US. This is not going to sit very well with large parts of the Arabian population. The credibility for the US as the self-declared global democracy champ is going to take a nose dive. In the long term the Muslim Brotherhood is going to win this fight because the military will be seen as traitors serving foreign interests.
bobinget on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 4:06 pm
America will be blamed, no matter the outcome. ‘The Street’ currently believes, depending on the individual’s
politics, exactly this.
The army will prevail for now.
Every other shaky Arab oil state is sending aid to support the all powerful army suppress any ‘people’s
revolt’, lest contagion infect their own repressive regimes. Band-aid oil has already been diverted to Egypt, keeping the lights burning and half-tracks
tracking.
Armies are best at breaking, killing and not being
vaguely democratic. It will take another decade for Egypt to experiment with democracy. Eventually, they will get it right.
In the mean time, after thousands of martyrs are buried and every last Twitter has exhausted our sympathy, a new ME crisis will come along with
several more capable contenders determined to
revenge each and every outrage ten fold.
mike on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 4:12 pm
look well, for this type of idiocy will become prevalent more and more in the first world over this century. Families will divide, communities will go to war and there will be heroes and villains on both sides. Peak energy will never be accepted by the public and some human based reason will be remembered as why this civilization collapsed. It happens like this every single time.
DC on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 4:50 pm
Egypt declares a state of the *long* emergency
Fixed it for them…
TIKIMAN on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 5:16 pm
Obamas arab spring is working out great!
Arthur on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 6:12 pm
Obama did not initiate the Arab spring. Meanwhile hundreds of deaths:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/gewalt-in-aegypten-eskaliert-elbaradei-tritt-zurueck-viele-tote-a-916646.html
Veep ElBaradei has stepped down in protest against the behavior of army. E. is the man with the most prestige in the West, but even he is not willing to carry out the western agenda at the cost of the Egyptian population.
Again, the reason why the Egyptian army stepped in was because Morsi (and Erdogan and Qatar) were a little bit too supportive of the UK/US backing of the ‘Syrian’ rebels. Where UK/US are merely interested in destroying Syria, in contrast Morsi, Erdogan and Qatar were interested in a Sunni takeover of Syria. Oh, and the rest of the ME, with main prize Saudi-Arabia.
The head of the CIA confided earlier this week that Syria is his largest headache and it is not difficult to understand why: the purpose of the 1996 zionist written Clean Break strategy was to either fragment ME countries or add them as a satellite to the US empire and for this purpose the 9/11 operation was orchestrated. However, none of this is going to happen. Instead we see the rise of two new homogeneous cleansed empires: a) Shia axis Teheran-Bagdad and b) Sunni axis Istanbul-Damascus-Riyahd-Cairo. Oh, and kiss precious Israel goodbye. This is now únderstood at the State Department and in full panic the emergency brake is hit… which is going to make matters worse, as we can now see unfolding in Egypt. Meanwhile some Saudi prince has defected, indicating a great tension within the Saudi ruling class. SA supported the US antagonizing of Iran, but it looks like that the SA rulers are betting on the wrong horse and are threatened to be attacked ftom behind by their own population.
Arthur on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 9:15 pm
What a carnage:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2392614/Egypt-protests-Sky-News-cameraman-Mick-Deane-shot-dead-100-killed-bloodbath.html
dissident on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 9:32 pm
No moral indignation from the west. No calls to action to bring democracy to the people. Just calls to boycott the Sochi Olympics because of Russia’s law against the peddling of gay sex to minors (BTW, the USA is quite paranoid about exposing it minors to sex of any sort, but they foam at the mouth with hypocrisy in the case of Russia).
GregT on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 9:47 pm
Food insecurity and high youth unemployment are the primary factors in Middle Eastern uprisings. Both of which were sparked by a dramatic increase in energy costs, following the peak of conventional oil production.
http://necsi.edu/research/social/food_crises.pdf
Food security problems, and youth unemployment are not limited to the ME, and continue to spread globally. They are expected to only worsen in the coming years. One in 6 people in the US cannot afford to eat now, and reports in Canadian media as of this week are saying; 1 in every 8 Canadians can no longer afford food. This trend will continue until tipping points are reached, when people here will revolt as well. We have already seen a taste of things to come through the OWS movements. A very small taste of our futures.
DC on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 11:08 pm
Dissendent,the US of hyprocisy doesnt give 2 shyts about gays in Russia. Its just payback to the Russian gov’t for its decision to shelter Snowden. That, and it also takes the spotlight off that whole spying on the entire world thing…
All the ‘liberal’ media rage over this ginned up story in the western press is to take to the heat of the NSA story-and to try to make President Putin look weak and villainous to the western sheeple.
Egypt is the shape of things to come for all of us, yes, even for North America. Which is why the zionist criminal US govt, and their lapdogs in the harper regime are so busy building new prisons and signing ‘cross-border security’ arrangements as fast as they can. Paving the way for military corporate rule here as well.
GregT on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 12:06 am
We already have US customs officers in our airports in Canada, and the US Coast Guard is now operating in Canadian waters.
BillT on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 1:50 am
There are no ‘democracies’ in the world. Never will be. The Us certainly isn’t one, as it’s citizens are slowly finding out. The problems in the ME are spreading to the Western world and eventually to everyone. Be patient.
Arthur on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 10:33 am
The closest thing to democracy applies to people from Switzerland, who are regularly invited to go to the marketplace and raise hands on local issues:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-120429-townvote-cannon.photoblog900.jpg
In the US there is just as much democracy as in North-Korea: none. Democracy is a media game where Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly (youtube vM0DUo-xrjo) play being opponents and after the elections it is BAU and policy it is determined by the CFR, FED, AEI, AIPAC, JINSA, ADL and a host of other zionist dominated organisations. It is virtually impossible for third parties to break in into the US two party system. In Europe it is a little better (but not much), although there it is possible for new parties to enter the scene, even in Britain (UKIP, BNP). But these parties are marginalized if not demonized through selective treatment by the system media.
Arthur on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 6:14 pm
One day later… between 700-1000 people killed.