Coptic movements on Sunday condemned security forces' violent attempt to disperse a sit-in organized by unarmed protesters and victims of the 25 January revolution in downtown Cairo Saturday.
The had protesters demanded the sacking of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet and the appointment of a national salvation government.
The Maspero Youth Federation (MYF) announced its solidarity with the peaceful protesters, describing the manner in which security forces dealt with protesters as "unjustified." On 9 October, violence at a mostly Coptic protest at the state TV building left 28 people dead.
In a statement, the MYF demanded “a national salvation government and a civilian presidential council to bring the country out of the dark tunnel Egypt has entered into during the past 10 months." The MYF announced that several of its members had been injured during the protests.
The Copts Without Restrictions movement condemned all forms of violence against peaceful demonstrators and the security apparatus' return to its former ways of suppressing freedoms.
The movement said security forces “used weapons and ammunition to face the youth, who were full of life and who were fighting for the advancement of this nation and calling for the fall of the tyrants."
“These contrived events, the fuse of which is lit from time to time, and the misleading media coverage of these events reflects the ruling authorities’ intention to use them as a pretext to stop the progress of democracy in order to turn the nation's dreams of a revolution for change to a soft-core coup led by the military wing within the ousted regime, to seize power through shady deals with certain political currents,” the movement's statement said. “This will not be accepted by the youth who aspire for freedom, even if the price is more martyrs’ blood.”
Hany al-Gaziry, a spokesperson for the Copts for Egypt movement, said: “The police are harshly and violently chasing protesters while allowing the thugs to wander the streets freely.”
Gaziry called on Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy and Sharaf’s cabinet to resign, saying the cabinet has failed to achieve the aspirations of the revolutionary youth.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
