Egyptians Gather for Rival Protests

Reuters
Anti-Mursi protesters chant slogans during a mass protest to support the army in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Friday.

CAIRO—Egyptians braced for a bloody confrontation between hundreds of thousands of rival protesters on Friday as prosecutors ramped up criminal accusations against ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

Egyptians braced for confrontations between hundreds of thousands of rival protesters as prosecutors ramped up accusations against ousted President Mohammed Morsi. Matt Bradley reports from Cairo, and Washington Institute Next Generation Fellow Dr. Eric Trager offers analysis. Photo: AP.

Tens of thousands of pro- and anti-Morsi protesters had already filled squares throughout the nation by late Friday afternoon. By early evening, dozens of people had been injured in fighting between the two sides in cities throughout the country, according to Egyptian state media. Two people were killed in clashes in the coastal city of Alexandria, the Associated Press quoted an Egyptian health ministry official as saying.
Friday’s early taste of violence augured worse clashes after nightfall, after most people in this Muslim-majority country break their daylong Ramadan fast. The Brotherhood has organized as many as 34 protests in Egypt’s capital alone and many more in rural governorates.
Egyptian prosecutors on Friday accused Mr. Morsi of conspiring with the Palestinian militant group Hamas to escape jail during Egypt’s revolution against President Hosni Mubarak in January and February 2011. The prosecutor’s investigation could see Mr. Morsi face trial for espionage in the service of a foreign group—a charge that is akin to treason.
Mr. Morsi and other senior Brotherhood have said in the past that they broke out of jail with the help of other prisoners, not Hamas operatives. Brotherhood lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment. Many are in prison with Mr. Morsi.
The push against Mr. Morsi raises the stakes in a simmering confrontation that looks set to boil over within the next few days.

Reuters
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi shout slogans during a rally in Cairo on Friday.

Earlier

Cairo's Tahrir Square was braced for more violent clashes after the country's military strongman Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi asked the public to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood on Friday. Islamists took to the streets after the military accused the former leader, Mohammed Morsi, of having links to Hamas. Matt Bradley reports.

Egypt’s media, military and interim civilian leadership have adopted an antagonistic language toward Mr. Morsi’s mostly Islamist supporters, casually referring to them as terrorists, accusing them of having been infiltrated by foreign agents and in some cases demanding that they be “cleansed” from the public.
The rising frenzy has rendered the Arab world’s largest country, a strategic U.S. ally, ripe for the kind of violence that many observers fear could lead to an extended insurrection.
A huge numbers of anti-Morsi protesters are expected to flood city squares throughout the country on Friday afternoon, answering a call by General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Egypt’s minister of defense, who on Wednesday appealed to Egyptians to demonstrate to give him a “mandate” to fight “terrorism.”
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies are planning their own marches, setting the stage for a potentially bloody face-off after weeks of street-level violence that has already killed as many as 200 protesters.

European Pressphoto Agency
An Egyptian army helicopter hovered over a crowd of Morsi opponents near the presidential palace Friday.

It remained unclear what Gen. Al Sisi’s mandate would entail, and who would fall under the category of “terrorist.”
But activists and foreign diplomats said Gen. Al Sisi was likely looking for a public blessing to crack down on Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the tens of thousands of Morsi supporters still camped out in downtown Cairo.
So far, the Egyptian public looks determined to offer Gen. Al Sisi the political cover he demands.
“Now it’s the military’s war,” said Shadi Al Ghazali Harb, a leader in the anti-Morsi June 30 Coalition and one of the activists who helped oust Mr. Mubarak more than two years ago. “The military is going to go through it and they are going to take it to the end.”
Prosecutors on Friday remanded Mr. Morsi, whom the military has detained incommunicado since his removal from power more than three weeks ago, to 15 days in custody pending an investigation on three other serious allegations, each of which could carry its own tough sentence.
The accusations that he conspired with Hamas dovetail with wider suspicions—repeatedly made in the media over the past several weeks—that the Brotherhood has enlisted Hamas operatives to strike at police and military targets in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Reuters
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi attend Friday prayers during a rally around Rabaa Adawiya Square in Cairo.

Brotherhood leaders rejected the accusations Friday, characterizing them as a nakedly political attempt to justify Gen. Al Sisi’s military takeover three weeks ago.
“Announcing a decision to detain a legitimate president who has immunity, who should not stand trial except under specific constitutional procedures and under very suspicious timing and in the absence of the simplest concepts of the rule of law as well in the absence of his lawyer, shows the nature of the current struggling fascist military regime,” said a message posted Friday to the official Facebook page of Essam el-Erian, the deputy head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party.
Human-rights groups and some activists have cast serious doubt on the validity of the espionage charges, pointing to the paucity of evidence backing them up.
“That case was very slim on evidence,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher for the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
Ms. Morayef said the increasing bluster on both sides of Egypt’s internal debate, particularly the military’s calls to protest, have created an atmosphere of panic in which human rights concerns could easily be cast aside.
“I’m worried about the discourse over the last few days that we’ve heard from the military and the lack of recognition of the need to use force in a legal and proportionate manner,” she said.
With tension mounting, some Egyptian political leaders pleaded for calm.
“Non violence, rule of law and due process, and reconciliation based on inclusiveness are key principles to adhere to at this difficult time,” read a message on the official Twitter account of Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt’s vice president and a leader in the anti-Morsi opposition movement.
Write to Matt Bradley at matt.bradley@dowjones.com

Original post: Egyptians Gather for Rival Protests