Hosni Mubarak leaves prison to a mixed reception from Egyptian public

Former president's transfer to hospital greeted by jubilation, indifference and fear that it is another sign of resurgent old order

• Marwa Awad and Ian Black in Cairo
• theguardian.com, Thursday 22 August 2013 15.09 EDT

After more than two years in jail, Egypt's ousted former president Hosni Mubarak is under house arrest in a Cairo military hospital, having been flown by helicopter from prison. His lawyer said this hospital would be the last step on the 85-year-old's road to being freed.
Emerging on to the roof of the prison building carried on a trolley stretcher, casually dressed in white trousers, a shirt and loafers, the former dictator flashed a smile in the direction of assembled supporters.
Mubarak, who ruled for 30 years, still faces retrial on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the 25 January revolution. But the dramatic events of the past week – during which he has been transformed from a villain of the state to a man about to win his freedom – has raised doubts over whether the new martial leadership has the will to pursue the case against him.
The final say on where Mubarak will go rests with Hazem el-Beblawi, the prime minister in the military-backed interim government.
Critics fear his release is a sign that the military is reinventing an old order which has regained prominence since elected president and former Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi was removed from power on in a military coup backed by popular will seven weeks ago. In a matter of weeks, Egypt has seen the return of the old order's state security and police forces to streets.


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Egyptian security forces surrounded a Cairo mosque full of supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi on Saturday after street battles that left more than 80 dead.

Egypt mosque besieged as Islamists prepare fresh demos

• PHOTOS
• VIDEOS

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi on Friday march towards Old Cairo as they carry the coffin, covered with a national flag, of their colleague who was killed during Wednesday's clashes in Cairo, Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)


CAIRO - Egyptian security forces surrounded a Cairo mosque full of supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi on Saturday as protesters planned fresh marches after street battles that left more than 80 dead.
The tense standoff at the Al-Fath mosque came after bloody clashes that killed 83 people across the country and resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 alleged supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.
The crackdown has divided Egyptians as never before in recent history, splintering the army-installed government and inviting international censure.
One protester said nearly 1,000 people were trapped in the mosque, which had earlier held the bodies of more than 20 people killed in Friday's clashes.
Soldiers had offered to evacuate the women but insisted on questioning the men, which the protesters refused, a demonstrator on the scene said.
Both sides accused the other of opening fire but the gunfire then ended, one person inside the mosque told AFP.
"Thugs tried to storm the mosque but the men barricaded the doors," she said.
Security officials quoted by the official MENA news agency said that "armed elements" had been shooting at security forces and police from inside the mosque.
Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) pleaded for another "massacre" to be avoided after at least 578 people were killed across the country Wednesday when police cleared protest camps set up by loyalists of the former president deposed by the military on July 3.
It was not possible to verify the numbers in the mosque independently.
The latest unrest started as Morsi supporters emerged from mosques in the capital to protest in what they billed as a "Friday of anger" following Wednesday's bloodbath.
Violence erupted almost immediately, with gunshots ringing out in Cairo and security forces firing tear gas.
In the capital, a man leapt off a bridge near a police station to escape shooting as police armoured vehicles advanced on protesters, witnesses said.
An AFP correspondent counted at least 19 bodies in one Cairo mosque, while witnesses said more than 20 corpses had been laid out in a second mosque.
Elsewhere in Egypt, 10 people were killed by security forces and dozens injured in the canal city of Suez when they gathered to protest in defiance of the curfew.
Their deaths brought to 83 the number killed in nationwide violence although the FJP spoke of 130 dead in Cairo alone.


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Muslim Brotherhood calls for nationwide march as death toll from Wednesday’s clashes rises to 638

Egypt braced for more violence

• Reuters
• Published: 08:49 August 16, 2013
• 

• Image Credit: AP

Egyptian army soldiers take their positions on top and next to their armoured vehicles while guarding an entrance to Tahrir square, in Cairo, Egypt.

Cairo: Deeply polarised Egypt braced for renewed confrontation on Friday after the Muslim Brotherhood called for a nationwide march of millions to show anger at a ferocious security crackdown on Islamists in which hundreds were killed.

Defying criticism from major Western allies, Egypt’s army-backed government warned it would turn its guns on anyone who attacked the police or public institutions after protesters torched a government building in Cairo on Thursday.

At least 638 people died and thousands were wounded on Wednesday when police cleared out two protest camps in Cairo set up to denounce the military overthrow on July 3 of Egypt’s first freely elected president, Islamist leader Mohammad Mursi.

It was the third mass killing of Mursi supporters since he was ousted. The assault left his Muslim Brotherhood in disarray, but they warned they would not retreat in their showdown with army commander General Abdul Fattah Al Sisi.

“After the blows and arrests and killings that we are facing, emotions are too high to be guided by anyone,” said Brotherhood spokesman Gehad Al Haddad.

A statement from the Brotherhood called for a nationwide “march of anger” by millions of supporters on Friday after noon prayers.

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Egypt protest camp violence in pictures

“Despite the pain and sorrow over the loss of our martyrs, the latest coup makers’ crime has increased our determination to end them,” it said.

The Brotherhood accuses the military of staging a coup when it ousted Mursi. Liberal and youth activists who backed the military saw the move as a positive response to public demands.

Friday prayers have proved a fertile time for protests during more than two years of unrest across the Arab world.

In calling for a “Friday of anger,” the Brotherhood used the same name as that given to the most violent day of the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. That day, January 28, 2011, marked the protesters’ victory over the police, who were forced to retreat while the army was asked to step in.

In a counter move, a loose liberal and leftist coalition, the National Salvation Front, called on Egyptians to protest on Friday against what it said was “obvious terrorism actions” conducted by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Signalling his displeasure at the worst bloodshed in Egypt for generations, US President Barack Obama said on Thursday normal cooperation with Cairo could not continue and announced the cancellation of military exercises with Egypt next month.


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Egypt’s interim government was accused of attempting to return the country to the Mubarak era after the country’s interior ministry announced the resurrection of several controversial police units

Egypt restores feared secret police units

Military-backed government seems to have no intent of reforming practices that characterised both Mubarak and Morsi eras

• Patrick Kingsley in Cairo
• The Guardian, Monday 29 July 2013 15.44 EDT

Qur'ans belonging to supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Morsi are seen in a tent at Nasr City. Photograph: Manu Brabo/AP

Egypt's interim government was accused of attempting to return the country to the Mubarak era on Monday, after the country's interior ministry announced the resurrection of several controversial police units that were nominally shut down following the country's 2011 uprising and the interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency.
Egypt's state security investigations service, Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla, a wing of the police force under President Mubarak, and a symbol of police oppression, was supposedly closed in March 2011 – along with several units within it that investigated Islamist groups and opposition activists. The new national security service (NSS) was established in its place.
But following Saturday's massacre of at least 83 Islamists, interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced the reinstatement of the units, and referred to the NSS by its old name. He added that experienced police officers sidelined in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution would be brought back into the fold.
Police brutality also went unchecked under Morsi, who regularly failed to condemn police abuses committed during his presidency. But Ibrahim's move suggests he is using the ousting of Morsi – and a corresponding upsurge in support for Egypt's police – as a smokescreen for the re-introduction of pre-2011 practices.
Ibrahim's announcement came hours before Egypt's interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency – a hallmark of Egypt under Mubarak.
"It's a return to the Mubarak era," said Aida Seif el-Dawla, a prominent Egyptian human rights activist, and the executive director of a group that frequently supports victims of police brutality, the Nadeem centre for rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture.
"These units committed the most atrocious human rights violations," said el-Dawla. "Incommunicado detentions, killings outside the law. Those were the [units] that managed the killing of Islamists during the 1990s. It's an ugly authority that has never been brought to justice."


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