One person was killed in Cairo, as security forces dispersed minor protests held by supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo’s Maadi, Imbaba and Kerdasa districts on Friday, the second anniversary of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar told the Ahram Arabic news website that the person was killed in clashes in Maadi, and that protestors brought him to the hospital after he died.
Cairo’s Head of Security Ossama Bedeir told Aswat Masriya that the protests in Maadi had started after Friday prayers, and that the protestors had launched fireworks against security forces, prompting them to use tear gas to disperse them.
Police also broke up pro-Morsi protests in Menoufiya’s Sadat city, Ahram Arabic reported.
In a statement posted on the website of the Muslim Brotherhood’s now defunct political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, on Thursday night, the pro-Morsi National Coalition for Supporting Legitimacy called for a week of protests, under the slogan “The coup is terrorism… We will break you,” calling it a new revolutionary wave for “victory and revenge.”
The coalition said they condemn the “terrorism of the coup”, referring to Morsi’s ouster on 3 July 2013, and the killing of nine Brotherhood members in 6 October city on Wednesday.
Egyptian security forces on Wednesday killed nine members of the Muslim Brotherhood during a raid on their apartment in the western Cairo suburb of 6 October city, the interior ministry said.
The pro-Morsi coalition also denounced the killing of Egyptians soldiers in North Sinai on the same day.
“The attacks in Sinai, incurring the deaths and injury of civilians and soldiers, plunge the country into a state of chaos and constitute a real threat to Egypt’s security, and exposes its people to great danger,” read their statement.
Tens of pro-Morsi protestors also marched in Alexandria, calling for the return of Morsi to power, and condemning Wednesday’s killings in 6 October city.
Meanwhile, other protests in Alexandria’s Qaed Ibrahim district condemned the Wednesday’s attacks on security personnel in North Sinai, and burned the Islamic State (IS) militant group’s flag.They called for revenge for the Egyptians soldiers recently killed in North Sinai, and chanted anti-Muslim Brotherhood and anti-IS slogans.
Battles between Islamist militants and the Egyptian army in North Sinai on Wednesday left at least 117 people dead, including 17 army soldiers and 100 militants, according to official statements by the Egyptian armed forces.
In November, Islamist militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis swore allegiance to IS, and changed its name to Islamic State in the Sinai Penisula.