CAIRO: Less than a day after Egyptian Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi announced his resignation in protest over the killing of Coptic Christian protesters on Sunday evening in central Cairo, the military rulers forced him to reverse the decision. Beblawi, on Wednesday morning, apparently reversed his decision to quit after the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) asked him to stay, ending a confusing day that saw rumor upon rumor over alleged resignations. “It's more logical for me to stay on,” Beblawi said in a telephone interview on Wednesday with Bloomberg news agency. “I have resigned for political reasons but I don't want my resignation to have repercussions on the economy.” According to state television, the Beblawi did not give specific reasons for his resignation. However, one aide, speaking to The Associate Press on condition of anonymity said that his quitting the cabinet was a direct result of the military violence against protesters on Sunday. The aide said Beblawi had expressed exasperation with the government's inability to deal with the protests in an adequate manner and effectively told the prime minister in his resignation letter that he “can't work like this.” 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. BM
