SINCE taking rule of the country in February 2011, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has refrained from revealing their military forces' casualities during the days of the revolution or in successive incidents of clashes with some revolutionary powers, in which soldiers were injured or even died. At the time, the SCAF leaders then refused to announce the army's casualties so as not to spoil the relation between the army and the revolutionaries. However, SCAF has decided to change this policy and has revealed to the public the number of soldiers that were injured in the recent Abbassiya clashes. Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi even led the military funeral organised for the soldier who was killed in the clashes last Friday. By announcing the number of wounded soldiers and officers totalling 147 in front of the Ministry of Defence's premises in Abbasiya, SCAF intended to gain public sympathy and support for the course it has taken since that bloody Friday, in which five demonstrators died, hundreds were injured and hundreds arrested. The army's random and mass arrest of people in Abbasiya included some media members and university students, as well as some revolutionaries. There have been suggestions that some political activists are being charges with inciting the public to attack the Ministry's premises. The SCAF strategy has had some success, given the growing criticism of the Abbasiya protestors and their unjustified moving of the demonstrations from Tahrir to Abbasiya Square close to the Ministry of Defence's premises, symbolising the Armed Forces. There are even calls of bringing to account Hazem Abu Ismail, the excluded presidential candidate, for triggering this crisis at the first place. He implied to his supporters that there had been a conspiracy by State authorities and that they had forged documents pertaining to the nationality of his late mother and massed his supporters to object to the decision of the Presidential Electoral Commission to exclude him from the presidential race. By revealing the Armed Forces' casualities on the bloody Friday, SCAF made the public close their eyes to the violent procedures taken by the military police to disburse the demonstrators and arrest hundreds of civilians and referring them to the military prosecution. Further, no one seems ready, even, to consider the demonstrators assailing the premises of the Armed Forces as a natural reaction to the bloody assaults perpetrated by thugs against demonstrators in Abbasiya two days earlier!
