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Egypt: Islamists rally in Cairo against opposition

Saturday - 2/16/2013, 3:48am  ET

Supporters of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States for planning a campaign of bombings, call for his release while one demonstrator holding a poster with his image, during a rally outside Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. Around 5,000 mostly hardline Islamists are rallying in Egypt against a recent wave of protests that has killed around 70 people. Arabic reads, "Omar Abdel-Rahman." (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) -- Several thousand hard-line Islamists rallied in Cairo on Friday against a recent wave of violent anti-government protests, while liberal activists staged a smaller demonstration across town to call for accountability and justice from the country's leaders.

The parallel rallies mirror the deep divisions that have plagued Egypt in the two years since longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak's ouster, leaving the country's politics polarized, its people frustrated and its economy battered by the continuous turmoil.

The current cycle of unrest erupted three weeks ago around the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak. The opposition accuses Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who was elected in June, and his Muslim Brotherhood party of trying to monopolize power and of using violence against dissenters.

In the latest accusation, activists of the Free Front for Peaceful Change say one of their members, Ibrahim Hanafi, was abducted by three men in a white microbus who poured boiling water on his back before dumping him on the side of the road.

"They told me to stay away from the Brotherhood and politics, and just worry about putting food on the table," Hanafi says in a the video uploaded to YouTube Thursday.

Brotherhood spokesmen could not be immediately reached for comment.

The president and his backers insist that the opposition's relentless protests calling for reform have hurt the economy and have made implementing changes impossible.

Egypt's economy took another hit this week, with Moody's rating agency downgrading five of the country's banks, citing "the weakening capacity of the Egyptian authorities to support the government-owned banks." Egypt's foreign currency reserves have fallen below the central bank's "critical minimum" to $13.61 billion, threatening the country's ability to secure a nearly $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund that could free up other loan requests.

In a show of support for the president on Friday, around 5,000 Islamist supporters gathered in front of Cairo University for a rally dubbed "No to violence." Some of the demonstrators carried aloft banners that read: "People want an iron fist" and "Yes to Islamic law," while others chanted, "People want the law of God to be implemented."

The protest was largely seen as a denunciation of the anti-government demonstrations in recent weeks that have frequently turned violent, leaving more than 70 people dead.

"I would like to tell the people who are attacking the police by throwing firebombs at them that this is unacceptable," said Mahmoud Mamdouh, who was protesting outside the university. "These are our people and these buildings that are getting destroyed are our property."

In Cairo, prominent figures such as Mohammed el-Beltagi of the Muslim Brotherhood, spoke to the Islamist crowd atop a stage erected in the square that had a large banner with the image of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman on it. Known as the blind sheik, Abdel-Rahman is serving a life sentence in the United States for being the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"We are here in solidarity against violence and bloodshed, and the cutting off of roads and attacks on institutions," el-Beltagi told the crowd, according to remarks carried by the Brotherhood party's Facebook page. "These are crimes whose sphere is in the courtroom and not in politics."

A draft law proposed by the government could provoke more angry protests. The bill, which has not yet been discussed in parliament, would require prior police approval three days before holding a protest and would ban blocking roads and wearing masks during rallies.

Friday's rally was organized by Gamaa Islamiya, an ex-jihadi group whose members were imprisoned for decades under the former regime. The group's political party only won a small number of seats in last year's parliamentary elections, but has a widespread network of supporters across Egypt.

Also in attendance were two founding members of the group who were convicted of plotting to assassinate late President Anwar Sadat, who was gunned in 1981 after signing Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Egypt's most powerful Islamist groups -- the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Salafi parties -- did not officially participate.

Across town, a smaller crowd of around 1,000 liberal activists rallied outside the Qasr al-Kobba palace, one of the president's secondary palaces. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd who tried to scale its walls. The scenes were similar to what has unfolded in past weeks at the main Cairo palace where police and protesters have fought.

In a separate march, several thousand people descended on the Defense Ministry calling for retribution for the deaths of protesters during military rule. Another march headed to the main courthouse to demand justice for a 12 year-old vendor killed by the military earlier this month. The armed forces issued a rare apology for the death, and a military prosecutor detained a soldier for 15 days pending investigation.

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