Egypt erupts in violence after football death sentences
Egyptian protesters torched buildings in Cairo and attempt to disrupt shipping on the Suez Canal, as a court ruling on a deadly soccer riot stoked rage in a country beset by worsening security.
The ruling enraged residents of Port Said, at the northern entrance of the Suez Canal, by confirming death sentences imposed on 21 local soccer fans for their role in the riot last year when more than 70 people were killed.
But the court also angered rival fans in Cairo by acquitting a further 28 defendants that they wanted punished, including seven members of the police force which is reviled across society for its brutality under deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Security sources said two people, a man in his 30s and a young boy, died in Cairo from the effects of tear gas and rubber bullets. A total of 65 people were injured.
Saturday’s protests and violence underlined how Islamist President Mohamed Mursi is struggling – two years after Mubarak’s overthrow – to maintain law and order at a time of economic and political crisis.
The presidency said in a statement that the protests were not peaceful and condemned any violence against any property.
Polling process ‘confusion’
On Thursday Egypt’s election committee scrapped a timetable under which voting for the lower house of parliament should have begun next month, following a court ruling that threw the entire polling process into confusion.
The stadium riot took place last year at the end of a match in Port Said between local side Al-Masry and Cairo’s Al-Ahly team. Spectators were crushed when panicked crowds tried to escape from the stadium after a pitch invasion by Al-Masry supporters. Others fell or were thrown from terraces.
Judge Sobhy Abdel Maguid, listing the names of the 21 Al-Masry fans, said the Cairo court had confirmed “the death penalty by hanging”. He also sentenced five more people to life imprisonment while others out of a total of 73 defendants received shorter terms.
In Cairo, local Al-Ahly fans vented their rage at the acquittals, setting fire to a police social club, the nearby offices of the Egyptian soccer federation and a branch of a fast food chain, sending smoke rising over the capital.
Protesters target canal
In Port Said, where the army took over security in the city centre from the police on Friday, about 2,000 residents who want the local fans spared from execution blockaded ferries crossing the Suez Canal. Witnesses said youths also untied moored speedboats used to supply shipping on the waterway, hoping the boats would drift into the path of passing vessels.
Military police recovered five speedboats and brought them back to shore, but two were still drifting, one witness said.
Authorities controlling the Canal, an artery for global trade and major income source for the Egyptian government, said through traffic had not been affected.
“The canal … is safe and open to all ships passing through it,” Suez Canal Authority spokesman Tarek Hassanein told the MENA news agency.
The canal is a major employer in Port Said and, until now, protesters had declared it off-limits for the demonstrations apart from on one occasion when red balloons marked “SOS” were floated into the waterway.
Central Port Said was quiet following the court ruling, with the army maintaining security after the government pulled out police, who have been hated by many Egyptians since the Mubarak era, to ease tensions.
Spectators were crushed when panicked crowds tried to escape from the stadium after a pitch invasion by supporters of Al-Masry. Others fell or were thrown from terraces.
Many fans of the Cairo side were happy with the ruling on Saturday confirming the death sentences. “This is a just verdict and has calmed us all down. Our martyrs have been vindicated,” Said Sayyid, 21, told Reuters.