The authorities in Egypt say police are to blockade two protest camps in Cairo held by thousands of supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president ousted by the army a month ago on the back of huge protests against his rule.
An announcement on state television on Friday said the siege would start within 48 hours and that people will be allowed to leave the sit-ins, but no one will be able to enter.
The protests have presented a huge challenge to the military-backed authorities who want to restore a level of normality after the army deposed Mr Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, and to embark on new political arrangements undoing much of the Islamist-led process of the past two years.
The announcement of plans to surround the camps comes two days after the cabinet authorised the interior ministry to use “all measures” to clear them, raising fears of a bloodbath from security services actions.
The cabinet described the sit-ins as threats to national security. Supporters of Mr Morsi, many of them poor people brought in by bus from rural areas, have been camped for a month at the two sites, one in front of a mosque in an eastern suburb, the other near Cairo University. There are entire families with their small children among the protesters.
Leaders of Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group, several of them facing legal charges levied after the president was ousted, have also taken refuge in the larger of the two sites, near the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque in the eastern Nasr City suburb. On Friday evening, Mr Morsi’s supporters were reported to have started a third sit-in in the Heliopolis district near the airport.
On Thursday, a police spokesman went on television to urge protesters to disperse, saying they would not be harassed or prosecuted, but his call was immediately rejected by Brotherhood leaders who increased their defiance by organising a series of large rallies and marches around the country on Friday. Police fired teargas to disperse one protest in front of a media complex housing private television channels hostile to the Islamists.
Egyptian television said the interior ministry was opposed to the idea of storming the camps by force but would cut off all roads leading to them. Human rights activists and foreign governments have voiced fears that the use of force could lead to killings on a large scale. More than eighty Islamists were killed last week in clashes with police and, last month, fifty more were shot dead by army gunfire in front of a Republican Guard facility.
“We and the US are saying the best way is to go through a process of political reconciliation,” said a western diplomat. “Whenever they have used force large numbers have died. It is looking very bleak. We are not aware of any serious negotiations between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military.”
The Islamists say they are determined to stay until Mr Morsi has been released from detention and restored to office. Analysts and diplomats say there is little prospect Mr Morsi would take up his former office.
On Thursday, the US gave its strongest endorsement yet to the military leaders who toppled him, when John Kerry, the secretary of state, said the army had been “restoring democracy” when it moved against Mr Morsi.
Gehad Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, retorted: “We do not await anything from the US. In fact, we believe that the US administration is complicit in the military coup as they did before through supporting the Mubarak dictatorship regime.”