CAIRO — On the third anniversary of the uprising that promised to free Egypt from autocratic rule, thousands of demonstrators rallied in the capital Saturday to show support for the military figure who overthrew the country’s first democratically elected president.
Rival groups of demonstrators across the country were met with deadly force. Clashes between police and protesters who are aligned with Mohammed Morsi — and in a few cases, with liberal anti-military protesters — left 29 dead and nearly 170 injured, according to the Health Ministry, a day after six people were killed in a string of attacks on security targets in Cairo. Twenty-six of the deaths were in greater Cairo, the ministry said.
Morsi’s supporters in the Anti-Coup Alliance, an Islamist coalition, said at nightfall that 40 people had been killed nationwide. The Health Ministry releases the tally of bodies received by government hospital morgues, while activist tolls are often drawn from field hospitals and family members.
Earlier in the day, supporters of Egypt’s military commander, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, gathered in a tightly secured Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the pro-democracy revolt that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011. They chanted pro-military and nationalist slogans and urged Sissi, the man who led the July coup that ousted Morsi, to run for president.
The scene contrasted with the pluralistic atmosphere of the 2011 uprising, in which liberal youth activists, Islamists and others joined hands to call for Mubarak’s ouster and democratic reforms.
“There is no space for us,” said Marwan Yassin, a 23-year-old liberal activist from the coastal city of Alexandria. Yassin participated in the rallies that led to Mubarak’s downfall, but he said that “the youth have no faith in the political process now.”
The few sizable anti-coup demonstrations that materialized across the capital Saturday were met almost instantly with force. Police fired live ammunition at demonstrators.
In the capital’s Dokki neighborhood, police in black ski masks and bulletproof vests fired volleys of tear gas and bullets into an anti-coup march. An Interior Ministry official said at least 350 people were arrested nationwide.
