A doctor who said he preferred not to give his name lives in an apartment building that overlooks the Republican Guard barracks in Cairo. He told me he woke for the dawn prayer before 4 A.M. Shortly afterward, he heard gunfire and went onto his neighbor’s balcony for a better view. Some people were still praying, some were not, because the dawn prayer had finished by then. The men on the motorcycles were all masked, and it was hard to see them through the dark and the tear-gas smoke, but they seemed to be shooting, they were coming from behind the protesters, so they were shooting toward the protesters and the Army. Then the Army started firing. And the protestors were firing. I saw firing from both sides.” As for details, though—what they were firing, whether it was one or two protesters or something more organized—he said that it was dark and that he couldn’t exactly tell. The Islamists remained adamant that the Army fired on peaceful demonstrators. The Army says that they were provoked. Although many eyewitnesses and video clips corroborate some details—tear gas was fired by the Army at the start; gunfire came from at least some people on both sides, even if the Army did most of the shooting—there’s no clear indication of what sparked the violence. It is clear, however, that the vast majority of fatal injuries were caused by live ammunition, and that most of the dead were protesters. (An Army officer, a policeman, and a soldier were also reported killed.)
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 11:07:08 +0000
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