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 The attackers, mostly men in their early 20s, used rocks to chip
away at the large foundation stone and sprayed it with red graffiti
denouncing ousted President Mohammed Morsi and also Gen.
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the military chief who removed him in July
after days of mass protests demanding that the Islamist leader step
down.
The attack underscored the deep scars left by the political turmoil
in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak's ouster in 2011, with revolutionary
groups feeling betrayed by successive governments whose main
failures, in their view, was the inability to dismantle the Mubarak
regime and ensure retribution for the hundreds of protesters killed
at the hands of police and soldiers since 2011.
Some of those who participated in that revolt and the mass
anti-Morsi protests in June feel the memorial does not honor the
dead as much as it tries to paper over the continuing deep disputes
over Egypt's future. They say the military-backed interim
government, which was brought to power after the July coup that
ousted Morrsi is seeking to impose its control over what they see as
an intrinsically anti-authoritarian space.
The pre-dawn attack Tuesday came just hours after military-backed
Interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Biblawi inaugurated the foundation
in a ceremony held amid tight security. All entrances to the square
were sealed off by security forces and armored personnel carriers,
which caused hours of traffic congestion in Cairo.
Egypt's revolutionary groups were to mark later Tuesday the second
anniversary of some of the fiercest confrontations between Egyptian
protesters and security forces on a street near Tahrir. The clashes
in Mohammed Mahmoud street killed at least 45 people. Rallies are
also expected later in the day amid fears of more unrest and
violence.
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The groups claim that since Morsi's ouster in the July 3 coup, the
police returned to their brutal ways under Mubarak's 29-year rule
and that widespread human rights abuses are being committed under
the pretext of fighting a war against terrorism. They also accuse
the military of seeking to restore its domination of the country at
the expense of freedoms.
Since the coup, militants, some with al-Qaida links, have been
battling security forces and the army in the strategic Sinai
Peninsula in what has become a full-fledged insurgency. Elsewhere,
there have been bombings and large-scale attacks, including an
assassination attempt against the interior minister, who is in
charge of the police.
In one of the latest attacks, a senior security officer in charge of
monitoring Islamist groups, including Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood,
was gunned down on Sunday in Cairo's Nasr City district, a
Brotherhood stronghold and home to several military barracks.
"We don't want to be ruled by soldiers and we don't want to be ruled
by a Brotherhood that peddles religion," the men chanted around the
damaged foundation in Tahrir. "I want to say a word in your ear
el-Sissi, don't even dream of becoming my president," they chanted.
El-Sissi has not ruled out a run in next year's presidential
election.
[Associated
Press; SARAH EL DEEB]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
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