Video and Witness Accounts of Attack on Islamist Protesters in Cairo
By ROBERT MACKEY
Last Updated, Sunday, 5:19 p.m. As my colleagues Kareem Fahim and Mayy el Sheikh report from Cairo, the Egyptian police killed at least 72 people in an attack on an Islamist rally early Saturday.
While the interior minister claimed later that his officers “have never and will never shoot” one bullet at Egyptian citizens, some victims were killed with single gunshot wounds to the head and video, photographs and written accounts posted online by witnesses contradicted that assertion.
Sharif Kouddous, an Egyptian journalist, drew attention to video uploaded to YouTube Saturday morning by a witness named Mohamed Wasfi, who claimed to have captured the beginning of the clashes in Cairo’s Nasr City district.
The footage, recorded above Nasr Street, showed police officers firing tear gas at supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, who had marched down the road from their sit-in nearby. The video appears to show the confrontation after the protesters moved down the street, past the reviewing stand where former President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated in 1981, and reached a police barricade near the October 6 Bridge. Despite claims of gunfire coming from the Islamist side, the video shows protesters running back down the street after the first volley of tear gas was fired directly at the crowd, and officers and men in civilian clothes walking calmly in front of the police vehicles just over a minute later.
A sense of the chaos that followed can be glimpsed in video shot by for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, showing the street filled with tear gas and protesters hurling rocks back at the police.
The intensity of the battle between the officers and rock-throwing protesters was also captured in vivid footage shot near the front line and posted on a YouTube account registered in the name Ibrahim el-Masry.
An activist named Mohamed El-Zahaby recorded video early Saturday that showed more of the pre-dawn street fighting, filmed from behind Islamist lines in front of the pyramid-shaped unknown soldier memorial, and some of the desperate scramble to save wounded protesters. Mr. Zahaby’s footage also includes very graphic images of the dead and the wounded being evacuated from the front lines to a makeshift medical center. He told The Lede in an e-mail that he recorded the images between 3:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. local time.
Mr. Zahaby, a 33-year-old software engineer who calls himself an opponent of military rule not a supporter of the Islamists, previously published clear video images of how the last deadly attack on the Islamist demonstrators unfolded, three weeks ago.
The police released a compilation of video recorded during the subsequent clashes that showed Morsi supporters throwing rocks at the police in the dark and a man in civilian clothes firing a single blast of birdshot from a pistol during daylight hours. According to the interior ministry, that man was aiming at the police, although men dressed like civilians also fought against the Islamists alongside officers throughout the clashes.
Hours later, after journalists, diplomats and rights workers pointed out that the shooting victims were all on the Islamist side, the interior ministry released another 55 seconds of video, showing a badly wounded man in a hospital bed who was described as an officer shot in the head while speaking to Islamist protesters.
Throughout the day, Egyptians shared links to images of gunshots being fired from the police side. A video blogger who previously recorded images of the victims of the deadly attack on Islamist protesters on July 8, captured videoon Saturday of police officers shooting at protesters hiding behind a barricade made of paving stones constructed overnight.
Hossam el-Hamalawy, an activist blogger and journalist, pointed to videorecorded from behind Islamist lines that offered clear images of a masked police officer firing a rifle.
The same footage was included in a longer video report on the clashes, posted online by the news site Rassd, that showed more police gunmen firing at the Islamist protesters.
Mr. Hamalawy also drew attention to another YouTube clip, apparently showing a plainclothes officer firing a machine gun, that was later removed from the Web.
Before that video was deleted, another blogger made a copy of the footageand uploaded it to a different YouTube channel.
Muslim Brotherhood bloggers also posted a compilation of similar images on the Islamist movement’s official Ikhwanweb
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