Egypt Protesters Slam Army

CAIRO—A Muslim Brotherhood plan to stage large marches from 28 locations in greater Cairo proved anticlimactic, with turnouts that paled in comparison to demonstrations normally seen on Friday, Egypt’s traditional day of protest.
Some of the protesters who did turn out in Cairo appeared to have rebranded their cause—staying away from chants and banners supporting ousted President Mohammed Morsi and instead choosing nationalistic and anticoup symbols and songs.
In one sizable march in the upscale Mohandeseen district in Giza, a few thousand people chanted against the military, while posters of Mr. Morsi were absent. Nor did protesters focus on the release from prison on Thursday of former autocrat Hosni Mubarak, a man who led decades of government repression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Associated Press
Supporters of Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi hold posters showing victims of a military crackdown on their protest camp during a march in Cairo on Friday.

“The story is not the Brotherhood, the story is that al Sisi is a traitor,” marchers chanted, blasting army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who led Mr. Morsi’s ouster and the crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters that followed.
Many protesters on Friday held up four fingers as they marched—commemorating the Rabaa Square massacre last week in which more than 1,000 people died. “Rabaa” is derived from the Arabic word for the number four.
Friday was seen as a test of the Brotherhood’s resilience in the face of more than a week of violent dispersal of their sit-ins and the sweeping arrests of their leadership and rank and file membership. The day’s rallies were the first since the organization’s top leader, Mohammed Badie, was arrested and accused, with his top deputies, of inciting the murders of eight people when the Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters was set upon by protesters in late June.

Egypt's ousted leader Hosni Mubarak has been released from prison and private TV stations have shown footage of his arrival at a military hospital in a Cairo suburb where he will be held under house arrest. Tamer El-Ghobashy reports. Photo: AP.

By late afternoon, the marches had dispersed peacefully as military and police troops surrounded and cut off access to major squares to prevent gatherings.
Military and police personnel manned vehicles atop Cairo’s maze of flyovers, closing off major access points to locations where demonstrations were scheduled to begin.
In provinces outside of Cairo, small skirmishes were reported, with at least one death and several injuries. State and private television broadcasts largely ignored the protests.
Write to Tamer El-Ghobashy at tamer.el-ghobashy@wsj.com

Originally posted here: Egypt Protesters Slam Army