Egypt has jailed four top security officials accused of ordering police to shoot and kill protesters during country’s 18-day uprising, which ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, officials said Friday.
Rights activists welcomed the move as a step toward ending the culture of impunity in Egypt’s massive security forces, which are hated and feared in Egypt.
Officials put the number of protesters killed during the uprising at 365, but human rights activists and others have said the figure is much higher. According to a count by the Front to Defend Egypt, a group that provides medical and legal assistance to the demonstrators, 685 people died as of March 7.
The suspects jailed are the former Cairo security chief, the head of the State Security agency and the heads of General Security and riot police. They are the most senior security officials to be interrogated in the violence that marred the early days of the protests.
The men are accused of “inciting, assisting and agreeing to the killing” of protesters under instructions from their superior, said Adel al-Said, deputy General Prosecutor. They allegedly obeyed directives that “contradict government orders to preserve public order.”
Army fires at protesters
SANAA—Yemeni security forces opened fire Friday on demonstrators trying to rip down photographs of the president and at least six were hurt as the biggest protests in a month of unrest rocked the country in a massive call for regime change.
Protesters ripped down, burned and stomped portraits of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the town of Sheik Uthman, next to the southern port city of Aden, witnesses said.
Security forces hurled tear gas into crowds close to a football stadium, and then opened fire, using machine-guns mounted on vehicles, said eyewitness Sind Abdullah, 25.
It appeared the forces were mostly firing over the heads of demonstrators, who pushed and shoved in a panic to get away.
‘Day of rage’ protest fizzles
RIYADH—A call for protests in Saudi Arabia that had been talked about for weeks drew only a handful of people Friday, allowing the kingdom to keep at bay for now the waves of political unrest that have battered the Middle East and North Africa.
In the end, the “day of rage,” organized on Facebook and by word of mouth, fizzled. No protests occurred in any Saudi cities except for a small demonstration in Al-Ahsa in restive Eastern province, said Maj. Gen. Mansour Turki of the Interior Ministry. Turki said he did not know if any arrests were made in the Al-Ahsa protest. Human-rights activists did not return phone calls seeking comment on the events.
The prospect of street protests in the highly conservative kingdom provoked people’s curiosity, but few Saudis expected a big turnout.
Even though Saudi Arabia has serious problems with youth unemployment, official corruption and discrimination against women and religious minorities, among other things, even the kingdom’s critics do not want to overthrow the royal family. Instead they call for a gradual shift to a constitutional monarchy, a sentiment that all but saps the day of rage of its rage.
Protesters clash in Bahrain
MANAMA—Security forces reinforced by pro-government mobs fired rubber bullets and tear gas Friday to scatter protesters near Bahrain’s royal palace, as a conflict deepened between Sunni Muslims backing the ruling system and Shiites demanding it give up its monopoly on power.
The clashes broke out after an hours-long standoff between tens of thousands of demonstrators facing down lines of riot police and Sunni vigilantes carrying swords, clubs, metals pipes and stones. One protester, Habib Ibreeq, said people used private cars to ferry the injured to hospitals.
The latest clash reinforces the sense that nearly a month of protests led by the Shiite majority to demand sweeping political reforms was veering toward sectarian street battles between the divided communities. Shiites, who complain of discrimination, are also increasingly calling for the ouster of the Western-allied Sunni monarchy ruling the small but strategic island nation that is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The full number of injured was not immediately clear, but witnesses said it included dozens of people overcome by tear gas and others hit by stones or cut by blades.