In Cairo
Egypt
says it’s moving towards democracy quickly -
the military, led by their Field Marshall
Mohamed Hussein Tantawi,
the military should relinquish its power in as little as
two more years,
when there have been parliamentary elections
and ratification of a Constitution.
Muslims make up 90
percent of the populations and Christians,
Coptic Christians, make up 10 percent, and the
military partially dismantled a church
near Aswan
recently.
Yesterday, the Christians marched
from a Cairo
neighborhood towards the radio and
television buildings downtown, and they scuffled
at least three times with Muslims, but the violence
wasn’t awful - horrible, meant, mean - until 6
pm, where plainclothes security forces and demonstrators
threw
rocks at each other.
State televisions had urged “honest Egyptians” to go into
the streets
and protect the soldiers from Christian protesters.
Previous
Christian protestors have appealed to the military
for
protection against radical Islamists. Not
this
time – at one point, groups of riot police officers beat
Muslim protestors, who were shouting in Arabic,
“God is Great!”
while a few yards away other Muslims were breaking pavement
into
pieces, so they could throw rocks into a group of Christians
–
both sides.
The protestors chanted
“The people want to bring down the
Field Marshall”
and
“Muslim and
Christians are one hand.”
The police officers, cushioned by hundreds of men armed
with clubs and stones chanted
“The people
want to bring down the Christians”
and
“Islamic
state, Islamic state.”
In retaliation to the fighting, military
vehicles drove into protestors, crushing at least four
people - bones,
skin, meat – were they the passionate ones or the slow ones – how fast were the
vehicles going?
Soldiers fired bullets at the protesters -
at least 24 dead, and 200 wounded.
Thanks to the New York Times’ “Rage at Military in Egypt Fuels Deadly Protest”
