CAIRO –Thousands of supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi turned out for protests in Cairo after Friday prayers, despite a sustained crackdown on Islamists by the country’s new authorities.
AFP correspondents said the protesters mainly rallied in Cairo’s upscale suburb of Maadi, while state news agency MENA reported small demonstrations in other parts of the country.
The protests come a day after Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim survived a bomb targeting his convoy. A senior health official told AFP one person injured in the blast died on Friday.
The latest protests were called by an Islamist coalition led by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders have been rounded up by police after security forces stormed their protest camps on August 14.
Hundreds of people were killed in the operation against the two Cairo protest camps and ensuing nationwide violence.
Morsi was ousted by the military on July 3 after popular protests against his single year of turbulent rule. He is being held at an unknown location.
Since then Egypt’s new authorities have arrested much of the Brotherhood leadership, including its supreme guide, and more than 2,000 members, disrupting the group’s ability to mobilise supporters.
Earlier, an official told AFP the government would soon decide whether to dissolve an NGO registered under the Brotherhood’s name amid allegations.
The NGO is legally a separate entity to the Brotherhood movement.
