Egypt protesters try a scattered approach
24 Aug BTI.Com
March took a left down a trash-filled street, Enas Mohammad broke off
from fellow protesters to argue with a woman standing in front of a
poultry shop.Mohammad's already high-pitched voice peaked as she almost
shrieked about having seen bodies in the street after the military and
police cracked down on Muslim Brotherhood supporters demonstrating
against Egypt's July 3 military coup. But the woman seemed unconvinced,
one of many who have sided with the military against the backers of
deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
“I'm trying to explain to them what they aren't seeing. They are only
watching state media I was in Ramses, I saw the dead bodies,” said
Mohammad, a homemaker from the impoverished Sharabia neighborhood. “So
they can understand we didn't do anything wrong.”A week after Egypt
witnessed its bloodiest days of unrest, protesters against the
military-backed government came out across Cairo and outlying provinces
amid continued tight security. This week, though, relative calm
prevailed. One protester was reported killed when security forces
attacked.
Protest organizers took a different tack this time: Rather than
gathering in one location, groups of demonstrators marched through their
respective neighborhoods. More than two dozen separate protests were
reported in Cairo, with others elsewhere in the country.The strategy
left them less vulnerable to attack by security forces and allowed them
to take their message to the doorsteps of neighbors who they worry might
have misperceptions about them.In Sharabia, female protesters opened
their purses to show they had no weapons. And each time they marched
past a church, they pointed out how none of them had done the Christian
house of worship any harm.
The gatherings, dubbed the Friday of Martyrs, were less about
reinstating Morsi than about opposing Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, the head
of the armed forces, whose violent crackdown on dissent has resulted in
more than 900 deaths.The protesters walked for hours through narrow,
winding and muddy streets lined with piles of rotting garbage. Residents
leaned over their balconies and out their doors to watch. Some yelled at
the marchers; others lifted cellphones to record them.On this Muslim day
of prayer, some men sat on the street in plastic chairs, smoking hookah
and drinking tea, only to find themselves suddenly surrounded by
chanting men, women and children.
“This is for us to cover all the streets, and not just Rabaa and
Nahda,” said Rasha Iman, referring to the two squares where protesters
were encamped for six weeks before being bloodily ousted by security
forces. “We are here showing them that we are still here.”As they walked
on, a little boy playing with toy knives waved them faux-threateningly
at the marchers.
Mohammad Ali, an engineer, approached the boy and gave him a juice
box. The boy at first was hesitant, but Ali insisted.
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