CAIRO: Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) accused the 6th of April youth movement of having a “suspicious plan” to weaken Egypt's stability and “drive a wedge between the people and the armed forces,” an Army statement read, shortly following a march to the military headquarters. Ahmed Maher, the General Coordinator of 6th of April, told Egyptian daily al-Dostour that “none of the members participated in the march. “The SCAF should have met the demands of the revolution and tried [Former President Hosni] Mubarak and the killers instead of releasing inciting statements against a patriotic youth movement that took it upon itself to fight injustice, corruption and tyranny.” He questioned “are the statements of Mubarak being recycled here.” Mubarak is scheduled to go on trial August 3. A march of over 1,000 people had moved from Tahrir Square on Friday night towards the SCAF headquarters in Cairo's Abbaseya neighborhood, but were stopped by tanks and soldiers near al-Nour Mosque before reaching their destination. Eye witnesses said the army fired warning shots in the air to disperse the protesters. Panic then followed the gun fire. Activists in the protest have said on Twitter that more people have joined in after the shooting had stopped. The SCAF denied using any violence against protesters at sit-ins across the country in contradiction to activist reports that accused the SCAF of using force in some cities in an effort to break their protest. Here is the SCAF statement in English: The SCAF believes in continuing the communication with the great Egyptian people and the revolution's youth and pointing out the positive steps that happened over the past few days, which aims at realizing the legitimate of the January 25 revolution. Except that realizing these positive steps has contradicted with personal demands of some political movements that have special agendas, which started to incite, driving a wedge, between the people and the armed forces. Please know the following: 1. It is not true at all what has been said that the armed forces used violence against the protesters in Ismailia or Suez or any other city. 2. The divisiveness that the 6th of April movement is after is to drive a wedge between the army and the people and it is nothing but one of its goals that it tried to reach and it had failed because of the steps that were taken recently. The Supreme Council for Armed Forces invites all people to be careful to be cautious and not to be led behind that suspicion plan that aims to weaken Egypt's stability and to work on fighting it with all strength. BM
