CAIRO, Qahirah, Sept 03, 2013 (AFP)
CAIRO, Qahirah, Sept 03, 2013 (AFP)
Egyptian troops sealed off roads leading to Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square ahead of Islamist marches Tuesday, weeks after hundreds died in a police crackdown on a protest camp there, state media reported.
The official MENA news agency reported that military vehicles were stationed at entrances to the northern Cairo square, a symbol for supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi after the August 14 crackdown.
The measure comes ahead of a call by Morsi’s supporters for nationwide demonstrations to mark two months since his July 3 ouster by the military.
The military also blocked entrances to Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square, MENA reported.
On Monday, the Anti-Coup Alliance which is led by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, said the demonstrations would be held under the slogan: “The coup is terrorism.”
“These demonstrations and other activities” are “aimed at achieving the return of Morsi,” it said.
But the alliance’s ability to mobilise supporters has greatly waned because of sweeping arrests of the Brotherhood’s top leaders among at least 2,000 Islamists detained since mid-August.
On Tuesday, a military court sentenced 11 Brotherhood members to life in prison for attacks on soldiers in the city of Suez.
Forty-five Brotherhood members were handed five-year prison sentences and eight were acquitted.
The military cracked down on sit-in protests by Morsi’s supporters on August 14, and hundreds died in clashes there as well as in violence in the rest of the country in what became the bloodiest day in Egypt’s recent history.
Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, served for only a year before the military ousted him in the popularly-backed coup.
