Tuesday’s independent papers highlight the touching scene of hundreds of mourners bidding farewell to two new young martyrs in a painful funeral.
The recently-established paper Al-Sabah depicts the funeral procession of Amr Saad and Mohamed al-Gendy, who both lost their lives on Sunday in the latest wave of clashes that has swept the country.
A mass march moved from Zinhom Morgue to Tahrir Square, carrying both bodies while chanting angry slogans against President Mohamed Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The paper runs a picture of a coffin covered in an Egyptian flag surrounded by protesters, among them Popular Current head Hamdeen Sabbahi, who marched along with former presidential candidate Khaled Ali. Activist 18-year-old Gendy was a member of the Popular Current who died of injuries allegedly resulting from torture.
According to the paper, Gendy’s preliminary medical report shows that he suffered injuries to his head, face, chest, lungs and abdomen from sharp instruments.
Gendy’s apparent death from torture brings to mind the case of Khaled Saeed, who was beaten to death in 2010 by police. His killing is believed to be one of the catalysts behind the outbreak of the 25 January revolution.
Reporting on the same news, privately-owned Youm7 states that the procession witnessed sudden short bursts of anger. Some mourners, passing by the road leading to the British Embassy, reportedly destroyed a police car; however the crowd was quickly dispersed by a barrage of tear gas.
“Every day a martyr,” leads a bold headline on the front page of the liberal opposition Wafd Party’s paper Al-Wafd.
During the funeral, mourners pledged to carry out a second revolution against “tyranny” and the “dictatorial regime” to avenge the “victims convoy,” the paper says.
Independent paper Al-Dostour echoes the same sentiment in one of its signature manifesto-style headlines urging people to take to the streets in massive peaceful streets to overthrow Morsy and his group.
In response, the president’s office, predictably, adopts its usual “wait-and-see” stance on the deaths of young protesters due to police brutality.
Independent daily Al-Shorouk writes that presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali released a statement on Monday, published on his official Facebook page, saying that Morsy will investigate the cause of Gendy’s death, stressing “there is no turning back to violating the rights and freedoms of citizens.”
The paper also points out that the statement did not show any sympathy or express condolences to the victim’s family.
Flagship state paper Al-Ahram does not pay much attention to the large scale popular march for the two dead young men, as the funeral was mentioned in a short piece on the inside pages.
However, the paper focuses in its lead story on praising Morsy’s efforts in urging Interior Ministry’s senior officials to respect the right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of expression, but stressed the importance of the rule of law to control riots.
Morsy’s words regularly give the impression that he is against the police crackdown on peaceful protesters. However, the same apparatus from former President Hosni Mubarak’s old regime still exists to tighten the noose on protesters.
The accompanying article runs a bunch of headlines on tomorrow’s published interview of Al-Ahram’s editor-in-chief Abdel Nasser Salama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which will mark the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president in 35 years.
The headlines features the most substantial questions asked during the interview, concerning Iran’s stance towards Syrian crisis, its future political relations with Arab countries and the possibility of an Israeli attack on its sovereignty.
Ahmadinejad’s will come as part of his attending a summitof the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, scheduled to be held on Wednesday in Egypt.
The Freedom and Justice newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party, published a poll conducted by the BBC that allegedly found that 82 percent of Egyptians place all the blame for the country’s chaotic protests in front of the presidential palace on the National Salvation Front’s shoulders. Egypt’s leading opposition coalition was dubbed in the report the National “Destruction” Front, instead of “salvation.”
Independent daily paper Al-Watan slams the FJP’s report, quoting Naglaa al Emary, office manager of the BBC in Egypt, as saying, “It [BBC] does not carry out such polls in the first place … the news is merely an attempt by the Brotherhood to distort the image of the opposition.”
Egypt’s papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhurriya: Daily, state-run
Rose al-Youssef: Daily, state-run
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Watan: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Youm7: Daily, privately owned
Al-Tahrir: Daily, privately owned
Al-Sabah: Daily, privately owned
Freedom and Justice: Daily, published by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party
Sawt al-Umma: Weekly, privately owned
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Nasserist Party
Al-Nour: Official paper of the Salafi Nour Party
