CAIRO: The irony wasn't lost on Amr Mahmoud, a 27-year-old Muslim man who was injured in Sunday's clashes near the Egyptian State Television and Radio building, or Maspero, when the military announced it would be implementing stricter measures to ensure calm returns to the country. “They are sadly very serious in their propaganda and this will only get worse for the country,” he told Bikyamasr.com on Monday evening. “The military kills people, then tells the country they will make Egypt safe again. Wow, it's shocking.” The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) said in a published statement that it would take the “necessary precautions to stabilize security” and ensure that those responsible for breaking the law and causing violence would feel the “full weight of the law” in prosecutions. It came only hours after at least 25 Coptic Christians were reprimanded to 15 days in detention pending investigation over violence on Sunday. The military also said it would ensure parliamentary elections go forward this November and presidential elections would take place late next year, upon which time they would step down from power, over one and a half years after the January uprising ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. It all comes in response to the military's attack on Coptic Christian protesters on Sunday evening in downtown Cairo that left at least 24 people dead and hundreds wounded. Military police used force to disperse a Coptic Christian march that started from the district of Shubra and arrived early Sunday evening at Maspero, the National Radio and Television building. The military fired upon protesters, and ran them over with military vehicles. Thousands of Copts had gathered for the evening to protest the burning of a church in Edfu, Aswan on September 30. Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf gave an address to the nation early Monday morning, calling the clashes, “a conspiracy to bring down the state and not sectarian violence.” Some families of the deceased demanded autopsies for the bodies of their sons and daughters to determine the cause of their deaths. In the coronary report of one victim, the cause of death was reported as “fights between citizens.” Things on Sunday intensified after the military issued a statement on national TV, urging citizens to take to the street and “help protect the army against Coptic attacks.” Eyewitness told Bikyamasr.com that the call drove armed men from their houses to protect the army, believing that Copts were attacking the military and attempting to kill officers. This later turned out to be entirely false. One injured man at the scene told Bikyamasr.com that rumors about Copts burning copies of the Qur'an spread in the Cairo neighborhood Bolaq, near downtown. In response to the rumors, men took arms and “went out to defend Islam,” the injured man said. He asked not to be identified. He had a broken arm, and his head was injured and bleeding, yet he refused to go to the hospital for fear of getting arrested. He added that he and friends saw a corpse of man lying under the bridge near downtown and wanted to move it, but were stopped and assaulted by residents armed with bats and guns. Eyewitnesses by Maspero said that residents from neighboring areas came in to aid the military, and burned several cars near the building. The army, however, claims that Coptic protesters were the ones responsible for vandalized public property and attacks against soldiers, a notion that Copts and eyewitnesses strongly deny. “We were not armed and not at any point did any of us hold a gun. This was a peaceful protest that suddenly turned bloody after the military attacked us,” Mina, a protester who fled the violence in Maspero and took refuge in Tahrir, told Bikyamasr.com. “They were killing us even after we shouted “silmya, silmya” or “peaceful, peaceful,” he added. ** Manar Ammar contributed to this report. BM
