2 Dead as Egypt Protesters Clash with Police over Football Deaths
Two Egyptian protesters died on Friday of tear gas inhalation, medics said, as clashes raged in central Cairo between police and protesters amid nationwide protests calling for the ouster of the ruling military amid fury at the deaths of 74 people in football-related violence.
The two were rushed to hospital unconscious after joining protests near the interior ministry where riot police fired tear gas and demonstrators hurled rocks back, after a night of confrontations left hundreds injured.
The health ministry confirmed one death.
Thick tear gas blanketed the road leading to the interior ministry, where a makeshift barricade separated police and protesters, an Agence France Presse reporter said.
Demonstrators, many of them organized football supporters known as Ultras, held up a huge banner to the police that read: "Those who didn't deserve to die have died at the hands of those who don't deserve to live."
Rocks and stones flew in all directions as police vans repeatedly charged before retreating. At one point, riot police clubbed protesters who were just meters away from the ministry headquarters.
Across the street, a building housing the Tax Authority was on fire, state television reported without providing details.
Marchers descended on parliament from mosques across Cairo to demand that the generals cede power immediately after a night of demonstrations in major cities across Egypt left at least two people dead.
In a sign of the growing threat the political turmoil poses to Egypt's economy, two female American tourists and their Egyptian tour guide were kidnapped on the road from the historic St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai peninsula, security officials said.
The interior ministry said the injury toll since Thursday had reached 1,482 while one pro-democracy group, the Coalition of Maspero Youth, said one of its members had lost an eye during the clashes.
A soldier injured outside the ministry building on Thursday died in hospital on Friday, the state MENA news agency reported.
Masked protesters cut through barbed wire and lit fires on Mansour Street which leads to the ministry, as rocks flew overhead in all directions, the AFP correspondent said.
In nearby Tahrir Square -- nerve center of the mass rallies that forced Hosni Mubarak from power last February -- thousands gathered chanting slogans against the military council that took power when the veteran president quit.
Marchers set off from mosques across the capital after noon prayers headed to parliament, a few blocks away.
In the canal city of Suez, where two demonstrators were killed late on Thursday, police fired birdshot and tear gas to disperse angry protesters, an AFP reporter said.
Under a volley of rocks and stones, ambulances ferried the injured out of Al-Arbaeen Square in the center of the city at the opposite end of the Suez Canal from Port Saeed where Wednesday night's stadium deaths enraged the nation.
Thousands also took to the streets to denounce the ruling military in Egypt's second city of Alexandria and in Port Saeed.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) blamed the unrest on "foreign and domestic hands targeting the country."
In a statement posted on Facebook, it urged "all political and national forces of this great nation to take a national and historic role and intervene ... to return stability."
The clashes between fans of home team al-Masry and Cairo's al-Ahly marked one of the deadliest incidents in football history, and came amid claims by witnesses the security forces did little to prevent the rioting.
At final whistle, al-Masry fans invaded the pitch after their team beat the visitors 3-1, throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at al-Ahly supporters, causing chaos and panic as players and fans fled in all directions, the witnesses said.
Egypt's prosecutor general on Friday slapped a travel ban on the head of the Egyptian Football Association Samir Zaher -- a day after he was sacked -- and on Port Saeed governor Mohammed Abdullah who resigned following the clashes.
"This happened as security services stood by and did nothing, like they did in previous events, and perhaps they even contributed to the massacre," wrote Ibrahim Mansour, a columnist for the independent daily Al-Tahrir.
"This happened under the military council whose ouster the people are demanding, and who has proved that it is a failure," he said.
Egyptians have become increasingly angry with the ruling military, which they accuse of failing to manage the country and of human rights abuses.
For months, they have taken to the streets to demand the ouster of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and its chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi -- Mubarak's defense minister for two decades.
The SCAF has repeatedly pledged to cede full powers to civilian rule when a president is elected by the end of June.
But widespread suspicions that the military aims to retain some powers after the transition were fuelled by comments from U.S. former president Jimmy Carter after he held talks with the generals in Cairo last month.
"When I met with military leaders, my impression was they want to have some special privilege in the government after the president is elected," Carter told reporters after the meeting.
In the Sinai, the abduction of the two American holidaymakers marked a fresh blow to Egypt's already hard-hit tourism sector.
A group of masked gunmen held up the tourists' bus in Wadi al-Soal in south Sinai, snatching the two women and their Egyptian driver, the officials said.
Bedouin sources told AFP the kidnappers were demanding the release of relatives held in Egyptian jails, without providing further details.
With its glitzy strip of golden beaches, hotels and casinos, diving resorts and golf courses, the Sinai is one of the gems of Egypt's vital tourism sector but has been hit by mounting unrest, particularly from among its heavily armed Bedouin.
Last Saturday, a French tourist was killed and a German wounded during a hold-up at a money exchange bureau in the leading resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Source: Agence France Presse
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