Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Yep.

Massacre Of Islamists By Egyptian Military Likely Strategic Post by HAROON MOGHUL

Its hard to get a handle on whats happening in Egypt, but my sense is that all of this is deeply political in nature and intent. This is more than just a massacre, its a strategic massacre.

By cracking down so violently and indiscriminately on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, the military well knows it will initiate a cycle of retaliatory violence on the part of supporters, sympathizers, and opportunistic elements in the Sinai and elsewhere, who get blamed for being the Brotherhood even though theres absolutely no evidence that they are.

My proof is both current and preemptive. First, the military has not, as journalist @SarahCarr pointed out, tried to protect Christian churches, which historically get attacked in periods of crisis. The military surely knew there would be reprisals against Christians whove been perceived to be in support of the coup (which disempowered a class of people long brutalized by the army.) Either the military didn't care what happened to Copts, which based on the Maspero massacre is quite probable, or (maybe "and") they wanted Copts to be attacked. Which is to say, they used them as bait.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/haroonmoghul/7252/massacre_of_islamists_by_egyptian_military_likely_strategic/#.UgzaKMslclw.twitter

Yet somehow, it's "liberal" and "secular" and "Western" and "moderate" to cheer on mass murder against people one perceives as not sharing one's own particular political or religious persuasion....

[sandinista! 1,816]

THE ARMY PULLED THE TRIGGER, BUT THE WEST LOADED THE GUN

BRENDAN ONEILL

EDITOR

How Western liberals provided the moral ammo for the massacres in Egypt.

T

15 AUGUST 2013

here is world outcry over the behaviour of the Egyptian security forces yesterday, when at least 525 supporters of the deposed Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi were massacred. The killings were excessive, says Amnesty, in a bid to bag the prize for understatement of the year; brutal, say various handwringing newspaper editorials; too much, complain Western politicians.

Such belated expressions of synthetic sorrow are not only too little, too late (hundreds of Egyptians have already been massacred by the military regime that swept Morsi from power); they are also extraordinarily blinkered. To focus on the actions of the security forces alone, on what they did with their trigger fingers yesterday, is to miss the bigger picture; it is to overlook the question of where the military regime got the moral authority to clamp down on its critics so violently in the name of preserving its undemocratic grip on power. It got it from the West, including from so-called Western liberals and human-rights activists. The moral ammunition for yesterdays massacres was provided by the very politicians and campaigners now crying crocodile tears over the sight of hundreds of dead Egyptians.

The fact that General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of the Egyptian armed forces who swept Morsi from power on 3 July, feels he has free rein to preserve his coup-won rule against all-comers isnt surprising. After all, his undemocratic regime has received the blessing of various high-ranking Western officials, even after it carried out massacres of protesters campaigning for the reinstatement of Morsi, who was elected with 52 per cent of the vote in 2012.

Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Unions chief of foreign affairs, who, like al-Sisi, is unelected, visited Egypt at the end of July. She met with al-Sisi and his handpicked, unelected president, Adly Mansour. She called on this junta disguised as a transitional power to start a journey [towards] a stable, prosperous and democratic Egypt. This was after it had massacred hundreds of protesters, placed various politicians and activists in prison, and reinstated the Mubarak-era secret police to wage a war on terror against MB supporters. For Ashton to visit al-Sisi and talk about democracy in the aftermath of such authoritarian clampdowns was implicitly to confer authority on the coup that brought him to power and on his brutal rule and actions.

Meanwhile, the US has refused to call the militarys sweeping aside of Morsi a coup. The Democratic secretary of state, John Kerry, has gone further and congratulated al-Sisis regime for restoring democracy. Kerry said the militarys assumption of power was an attempt to avoid descendance into chaos and violence under Morsi, and its appointment of civilians in the top political jobs was a clear sign that it was devoted to restoring democracy. He said this on 2 August. After hundreds of Morsi supporters had already been massacred. If al-Sisis forces believe that killing protesters demanding the reinstatement of a democratically elected prime minister is itself a democratic act, a necessary and even good thing, it isnt hard to see where they got the idea from.

Human-rights groups like Amnesty have played a key role in keeping international eyes off Egypt by trumpeting other, apparently more pressing rights issues, such as Russias continued imprisonment of ##### Riot. Astonishingly, Amnesty has just launched a new campaign called Back on Taksim, which allows Westerners to check in online to Taksim Square in Turkey in order to raise awareness about the heavy-handed policing of the demonstration there and the brutal dismantling of the protesters camps. And the massacre of camping protesters in Cairo? Doesnt that deserve an app, too? Apparently not. Its only secular, left-leaning protesters that Amnesty and its Hampstead-based patrons are interested in, not bearded, Koran-reading blokes demanding the reinstatement of a religious-leaning president.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the_army_pulled_the_trigger_but_the_west_loaded_the_gun/13925#.Ug4quny9KK0

Edited August 16, 2013 by sandinista!

[sandinista! 1,816]

heh.

1. Max Blumenthal ‏@MaxBlumenthal57s

   Egypt's ONTV rebroadcasts Fox News & right-wing militarist Ralph Peters to legitimize Sisi's massacres: http://youtu.be/fb65FOxDg70

Can't edit my previous post, not sure why,

but here is the clip from today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chtGonznBDE

Again, I can't edit it for some reason, but I wanted to include a quote from the above link in case you're not sure if you want to watch it.

He says,

“We need to get over our narcissism and realize what’s going on in Egypt isn’t about us, it’s about the people in Egypt and other peoples throughout the Middle East struggling against fundamentalist extremists who are our enemies too—people struggling to build modern, decent, tolerant societies.”

“We cannot determine Egypt’s future, the Egyptian people have to determine that… but we should try to play constructively and not automatically assume—ooh, military: bad— peaceful protesters who happen to be thugs : good. I’m appalled at hearing so many Westerner commentators condemning the military and seemingly siding with the Brotherhood…. The Egyptian people want a little bit of freedom, and the Brotherhood came to power and tried to take that little bit of hard-won freedom away, and now you’re seeing the reaction. Again, I don’t like military coups, but the real coup was what Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood did to the fledgling Egyptian democracy. We need to get our priorities straight, and our priorities should be on the side of modernity, tolerance, progress, economic growth, and decency. Not on the side of bigoted, medieval, primitive, hate-filled religion directed against peaceful Muslims above all, because we should remember that the victims of radical, fanatical Islam have overwhelmingly been decent everyday Muslims.”

and today( in the second link) he says,

regarding the President's repeated portrayal of the MB as "peaceful protesters"

"peaceful protesters don't kill policemen, they don't burn churches and attack and kill Christians, they don't kidnap secularists and imprison them in mosques and torture them."

He gets politically controversial after that, talking about if Obama's admin would react differently if it was Christians killing Muslims, and so you can take that or leave it, but at least SOMEBODY in the US is covering the violence from the MB!!!!! They are not innocent, peaceful, democratically-minded protesters!

Edited August 18, 2013 by sandinista!

[sandinista! 1,816]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rRPVsacdro

[RFQ 110]

The whole world is an expert on Egyptian affairs because they watched the news...

Edited August 18, 2013 by RFQ

[Sarah Elle-Même 660]

Can't you just feel the democracy??

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/middleeast/morsi-supporters-vow-to-defy-egypts-military.html?_r=0

Egypt Security Kills 36 Held in Its Custody By ROD NORDLAND Published: August 18, 2013

CAIRO — The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody Sunday, as the military leaders and the country’s Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The news of the deaths came on a day in which there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in recent days, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid confrontations, including canceling several protests of the military’s ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and claimed that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

The government offered conflicting details throughout the day, once saying the detainees had suffocated to death in the van from tear gas to suppress an escape attempt, but later insisting that the Islamists died in a prison where they were taken.

In either case, the deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time those killed were in government custody at the time.

The Islamists, followers of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, have vowed to continue their protests, both against the military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi and the violence of recent days that started with the bloody crackdown on Brotherhood sit-ins that left hundreds dead.

Although it appeared that security forces were more restrained on Sunday — with no immediate reports of killings in the streets — Maj. Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the country’s military leader, spoke out on national television in defiant and uncompromising tones, condemning the Islamists again as “terrorists,” but promising to restore democracy to the country.

The government has been pursuing a relentless campaign to paint the Islamists as pursuing violence, and has increasingly lashed out at journalists who do not echo that line, especially the foreign media.

Acknowledging but rejecting the widespread criticism in Egypt and worldwide of the security force’s actions, the general said that “citizens invited the armed forces to deal with terrorism, which was a message to the world and the foreign media, who denied millions of Egyptians their free will and their true desire to change.” In a sign of increasing frustration with the government, the European Union, an important trading partner for Egypt, announced Sunday that it would “urgently review” its relations with the country because of the bloodshed, and said the interim government bore the responsibility for bringing violence to an end.

The Muslim Brotherhood had announced that it would stage nine protest marches in and around Cairo on Sunday as part of its “week of departure” campaign that began Friday to protest the military’s deposing of Mr. Morsi.

All but three of the marches were canceled, and even those were rerouted to avoid snipers who were waiting ahead, along with bands of government supporters, police and the military, some in tanks on the streets. The authorities, too, appeared to avoid aggressively enforcing martial law provisions that would have led to clashes with the protesters.

Protesters who gathered at the Al Rayyan mosque in the Maadi area of Cairo had aimed to march from there to the Constitutional Court, Egypt’s supreme court, whose chief justice, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim president by the country’s military rulers.

Marching in the 100-degree heat of late afternoon, the protestors were fatalistic about the threats they faced. Mohammad Abdel Tawab, who said his brother was killed Friday at Ramses Square, had heard the reports of pro-government snipers and gangs ahead. “They will kill us, I know, everybody knows, but it doesn’t matter,” he said.

A woman, Samira, dressed in an abaya with only her eyes visible, marched holding her 1-year-old daughter, Sama. “Whatever will happen to us, will happen,” she said. “God has written it already.”

Protest leaders, however, were more cautious, and repeatedly re-routed the march at the last moment to avoid confrontations, turning down narrow lanes where residents in upper stories sprayed them with water — it was not always clear whether the gesture was in support or in contempt.

In the last mile, the leader of the march, Mohammad Salwan, ordered everyone to get on the metro train for the final approach to the court, and then the protestors dissipated instead of trying to breach barricades set up by pro-military factions.

“We know there are snipers along the route, and we want to avoid losing any more lives,” he said.

Similarly, a protest in Giza was called off after it was threatened by military supporters, and the only other one to be held was in a strongly pro-Brotherhood area, Helwan, in south Cairo. Another march, to the presidential palace in Heliopolis, was also canceled.

“The leadership decided things were getting out of control and they couldn’t afford more casualties,” said a Brotherhood member who writes for one of the group’s publications and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the organization.

Even on Saturday, which had seemed relatively quiet, 79 people were killed in violence around Egypt, according to the government press agency, MENA, in an announcement Sunday. It provided few details.

Brotherhood leaders in particular have paid a heavy price, with the children of many top officials among the dead. They include Asmaael-Beltagy, the son of a senior Brotherhood leader, Mohamed el-Beltagy killed at Rabaa Square Wednesday; Ammar Badie, 38, son of Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohamed Badie, shot during clashes Friday in Ramses Square; Habiba Abd el-Aziz, 26, the daughter of Ahmed Abd el-Aziz,the media consultant to ousted President Morsi, killed at Rabaa from a bullet wound to the head on Wednesday; and the grandson of the movement’s founder.

There were scant details on the prison killings on Sunday, and no explanation for why the victims were inside a prison van and had reportedly taken a prison official hostage.

The Ministry of the Interior issued conflicting and confusing accounts of what had happened, at one point claiming the prisoners had taken a guard hostage, then saying militants attacked the prison van to free the prisoners, who were killed in the process, and then saying that tear gas used to suppress the escape caused the prisoners to suffocate. Later, the ministry claimed the deaths happened in the prison, not in the van.

The violence came a day after a blistering speech in support of the Muslim Brotherhood by Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who likened Egypt’s military leader, General Sisi, to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

“There are currently two paths in Egypt: those who follow the pharaoh, and those who follow Moses,” he said. Speaking before the European Union’s announcement of a review of relations, he also criticized other countries’ position regarding the military government.

“The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the European Union have no face left to look at in the mirror,” he said.

Mayy El-Sheikh, Kareem Fahim, and David Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.

[Sarah Elle-Même 660]

What was the point of this except to dispel any last remaining notions that the military and the military-backed judicial system are pro-democracy?

Officials in Egypt Said to Order Release of Mubarak

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, ALAN COWELL and ROD NORDLAND Published: August 19, 2013

CAIRO — The judicial authorities in Egypt have ordered the release of former President Hosni Mubarak, who has been detained on a variety of charges since his ouster in 2011, according to state media and security officials on Monday. It remained possible, however, that the authorities would find other ways to keep him in detention and his release did not appear imminent.

Egyptian state media reported that Mr. Mubarak would remain in custody for another two weeks under a previous judicial order before the authorities make a decision on his release. The outcome is likely to be read as a pivotal test of the new government installed by General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi and its desire to replicate or repudiate Mr. Mubarak’s rule.

The development threatened to inject a volatile new element into the standoff between the country’s military and the Islamist supporters of the deposed President Mohamed Morsi as Egypt entered the sixth day of a state of emergency following a bloody crackdown by the military in which hundreds of people have been killed.

It was unclear how Egyptians — particularly those who have welcomed the military action against Mr. Morsi — would respond to the release of a despised autocrat whose downfall united Mr. Mubarak’s secular and Islamist foes. News of the legal maneuvers came at a time of sustained bloodletting.

Just in the past 24 hours, the Egyptian government has acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody, while suspected militants were reported on Monday to have killed at least 24 police officers in an attack on their minibuses in the restive northern Sinai region.

Mr. Mubarak, 85, faces an array of legal challenges including allegations of corruption and a retrial on charges of complicity in the murder of protesters whose revolt forced his ouster in February, 2011.

On Monday, Mr. Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, said a court had ordered his release and he might be freed this week. But there was no official confirmation from the military-backed interim government that Mr. Mubarak would be released.

News reports said that the ambush on Monday morning had occurred in a village near the border town of Rafah and that three police officers had been wounded. It was the latest in a series of attacks in Sinai since the military forced the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, from office on July 3.

The attackers were initially depicted as Islamist militants firing rocket-propelled grenades at the police minibuses.

But there was some confusion, with later reports quoting officials who put the death toll at 25. Officials were also quoted as saying that the officers had been forced from their minibuses, told to lie on the ground and then shot to death. There was no immediate official confirmation of the events.

The Sinai Peninsula borders the Gaza Strip and Israel, which is planning to intensify a diplomatic campaign urging Europe and the United States to support the military-backed government in Egypt despite its deadly crackdown on Islamist protesters, according to a senior Israeli official involved in the effort.

Israeli ambassadors in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and other capitals planned to advance the argument that the military was the only hope to prevent further chaos in Cairo. On another diplomatic front, ambassadors from the 28-member European Union planned to meet on Monday to review the bloc’s relationship with Egypt, confronting a similar question of whether stability and security outweigh considerations relating to human rights and democracy.

In a radio interview on Monday, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said he did not accept that outsiders were powerless to influence events. “But we have to do our best to promote democratic institutions, to promote political dialogue and to keep faith with the majority of Egyptians who just want a free and stable and prosperous country,” he told the BBC.

“What we’ve done in Britain so far is that we have suspended projects with the Egyptian security forces. We have revoked a number of export licenses, and I think then among the European countries we should review together how we try to aid Egypt, what aid and assistance we give to Egypt in the future,” he said. He added, “Foreign policy is often about striking the right balance.”

He described the current crisis as bleak. “I think it will take years, maybe decades, to play out,” he said, “and through that we have to keep our nerve in clearly supporting democracy, democratic institutions, promoting dialogue and there will be many setbacks in doing that and we should not be surprised when they take place.”

On Sunday, there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that have claimed more than 1,000 lives since Wednesday, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid further confrontations, including canceling several protests over the military’s ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations” and said that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

The killings were the latest indication that Egypt is careering into uncharted territory, with neither side willing to back down. Egyptians are increasingly split over the way forward and there is no obvious political solution in sight. The government is considering banning the Brotherhood, which might force the group underground but would not unravel it from the fabric of society it has been part of for eight decades.

Foreign governments also remain divided over the increasingly bloody showdown. American officials said they had taken preliminary steps to withhold financial aid to the Egyptian government, though not crucial military aid, and the European Union said Sunday that the interim government bore the responsibility for bringing the violence to an end.

But the Egyptian military retains the support of the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have pledged billions in aid to the new government.

Although it appeared that security forces were more restrained on Sunday — with no immediate reports of killings in the streets — General Sisi, the country’s military leader, spoke out on national television in defiant and uncompromising tones, condemning the Islamists again as “terrorists” but promising to restore democracy to the country.

The government has been pursuing a relentless campaign to paint the Islamists as a threat, and it has increasingly lashed out at journalists who do not echo that line, especially the foreign news media.

Acknowledging but rejecting the widespread international criticism of the security force’s actions, the general said that “citizens invited the armed forces to deal with terrorism, which was a message to the world and the foreign media, who denied millions of Egyptians their free will and their true desire to change.”

The Muslim Brotherhood had announced that it would stage nine protest marches in and around Cairo on Sunday as part of its “week of departure” campaign that began Friday to protest the military’s deposing of the country’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi.

All but three of the marches were canceled, and even those that continued were rerouted to avoid snipers who were waiting ahead, along with bands of government supporters, the police and the military, some in tanks. The authorities, too, appeared to avoid aggressively enforcing martial law provisions, including a 7 p.m. curfew, that would have led to clashes with the protesters.

Protesters who gathered at the Al Rayyan mosque in the Maadi area of Cairo had aimed to march from there to the Constitutional Court, Egypt’s supreme court. The chief justice, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim president by the country’s military rulers.

Marching in the 100-degree late afternoon heat, the protesters were fatalistic about the threats they faced. Mohammad Abdel Tawab, who said his brother was killed Friday at Ramses Square, had heard the reports of pro-government snipers and gangs ahead. “They will kill us, I know, everybody knows, but it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Protest leaders, however, were more cautious and rerouted the march at the last moment to avoid confrontations..

There were scant details on the prison killings on Sunday, and no explanation for why the victims were inside a prison van and had reportedly taken a prison official hostage.

The Ministry of the Interior issued conflicting and confusing accounts, at one point claiming the prisoners had taken a guard hostage, then saying militants had attacked the prison van to free the prisoners, who were killed in the process, and then saying tear gas being used to suppress the escape had caused the prisoners to suffocate. Later, the ministry claimed the deaths had happened in the prison, not in the van.

David D. Kirkpatrick and Rod Nordland reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from London. Mayy El Sheikh and Kareem Fahim and contributed reporting from Cairo.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Sarah and Adnan

[Heather&Ramy 22]

There has been absolutely no evidence presented that any of the murdered protestors from the camp were involved in any church burnings, or attacks on Christians, or kidnappings, or any of these other claims.

Attempts to cite heinous acts committed in various places by who knows who as some kind of justification for the mass murder of political opponents and protesters is completely outrageous.

I really wonder what you would consider as evidence connecting pro-Morsi supporters to violent anti-Christian actions? Obviously not the media reporting (which I honestly don't blame you for), but Egypt itself is reporting all of these attacks and kidnappings, etc. None of your personal connections in Egypt are confirming that these actions are taking place and that they are being perpetrated by supporters of the MB? What kind of evidence would suggest to you that the events are related to the same people who supported and approved of Morsi's motions to impose extreme Islamism on moderate secularists and religious minorities in Egypt? Do you think it is really unrelated to the people who are shouting "By our blood, by our souls, we will defend Islam"? Who else would be doing such a thing?

"acts committed in various places by who knows who" makes it sound like it is this random thing that is hardly worth investigating. Over 30 churches have been attacked across the country (can you imagine if 30 mosques, or even 5, were attacked?), and hundreds of businesses and homes, and Christians being harassed in the streets. You talk about murder of "political opponents and protesters" but what about the MURDERS of the rest of the Egyptians done by the Islamists in their dying throes? If it's unclear who or what is behind these events just popping up all of a sudden, randomly, then somebody should spend some time figuring out who is doing it! Maybe you could tell us?

Anyways, days before the news was reporting any attacks on Christians, I was very saddened to hear about 300+ people killed as the military cleared out the pro-Morsi protesters, and then the toll went to 500+, and last I heard 900+. I cried for every life lost in Egypt. Murder of ANYONE is unjustified in my eyes... but defense might be. The MB had a looong time to sit down and talk and compromise and be moderate and work with the minorities. June 30 wasn't a surprise to anyone, yet Morsi and his supporters remained relentlessly stubborn! I'm sorry it has come to this. I hope the violence against every group ends immediately. With every death (including those of the MB) Egypt is just hurting herself, these wounds will last a long time. Wish they could have been more inclusive from the start, maybe June 30 would have never happened.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Heather&Ramy

[sandinista! 1,816]

I'm like totally befuddled- am I missing some posts here or something where anyone has said it's ok or excusable that brotherhood / supporters' violence or vandalism has occurred? I've read some Godawful twisted, morally bereft defenses of military and police force slaughter of anyone and everyone in their path with no impunity here, and those same excuseniks seem to have no concept of scale or grasp of exactly what it means when a massacre like this is perpetrated by a government while other big deal governments essentially cheer them on. But whatever. Coups are cool.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I really wonder what you would consider as evidence connecting pro-Morsi supporters to violent anti-Christian actions? Obviously not the media reporting (which I honestly don't blame you for), but Egypt itself is reporting all of these attacks and kidnappings, etc. None of your personal connections in Egypt are confirming that these actions are taking place and that they are being perpetrated by supporters of the MB? What kind of evidence would suggest to you that the events are related to the same people who supported and approved of Morsi's motions to impose extreme Islamism on moderate secularists and religious minorities in Egypt? Do you think it is really unrelated to the people who are shouting "By our blood, by our souls, we will defend Islam"? Who else would be doing such a thing?

"acts committed in various places by who knows who" makes it sound like it is this random thing that is hardly worth investigating. Over 30 churches have been attacked across the country (can you imagine if 30 mosques, or even 5, were attacked?), and hundreds of businesses and homes, and Christians being harassed in the streets. You talk about murder of "political opponents and protesters" but what about the MURDERS of the rest of the Egyptians done by the Islamists in their dying throes? If it's unclear who or what is behind these events just popping up all of a sudden, randomly, then somebody should spend some time figuring out who is doing it! Maybe you could tell us?

Anyways, days before the news was reporting any attacks on Christians, I was very saddened to hear about 300+ people killed as the military cleared out the pro-Morsi protesters, and then the toll went to 500+, and last I heard 900+. I cried for every life lost in Egypt. Murder of ANYONE is unjustified in my eyes... but defense might be. The MB had a looong time to sit down and talk and compromise and be moderate and work with the minorities. June 30 wasn't a surprise to anyone, yet Morsi and his supporters remained relentlessly stubborn! I'm sorry it has come to this. I hope the violence against every group ends immediately. With every death (including those of the MB) Egypt is just hurting herself, these wounds will last a long time. Wish they could have been more inclusive from the start, maybe June 30 would have never happened.

Obviously, you need to read my posts a lot more attentively.

Again: There is no evidence that any of the protestors murdered in the camp were involved in any attacks on Christian churches. If you have any evidence, post it.

Being a member of the MB or a supporter of the MB (or merely being perceived as supporting the MB because one is against an illegal military coup against a democratically-elected government) does not make one collectively guilty for any and every crime committed in Egypt, or subject to some kind of extra-judicial death penalty.

It's hardly "democratic" or "progressive" to cite criminal acts in general - for which no suspects have even been specifically identified, much less arrested - as justification for the mass murder of political opponents.

What we are seeing in Egypt is a foreign-trained and foreign-funded military violently deposing an elected government, shutting down independent and opposition media, while murdering and outlawing members of opposition political parties.