CAIRO // At least 15 people were killed in anti-government protests in Egypt on Sunday, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, security sources said.
In the bloodiest day of protests since Abdel Fattah El Sisi was elected president in June, security forces and plain clothed police fired at protesters, witnesses said.
The anniversary is a test of whether members of the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal activists have the resolve to challenge a government that has stamped out dissent since the then-army chief El Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
After nightfall, gunfire and sirens could be heard in central Cairo as armoured personnel carriers moved through the city centre. Protesters set fire to a government building on a street near the Pyramids, state media said.
Dozens of protesters were killed during last year’s anniversary. Again this year, security forces fanned out across the capital and other cities.
The heaviest death toll was in the Cairo suburb of Matariya, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold.
People in Matariya chanted “down with military rule” and “a revolution all over again”. Demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails at security forces and fires raged
Riot police backed by soldiers in armoured vehicles sealed off roads, including those leading to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of the 2011 revolt.
In downtown Cairo, riot police with rifles and plain clothed men with pistols chased protesters through the streets.
Six people were killed in separate protests in Alexandria, Egypt’s second biggest city, Giza governorate outside of Cairo and the Nile Delta province of Baheira, security sources said.
A bomb wounded two policemen stationed outside a Cairo sports club, the sources said.
Signs of discontent built up as the anniversary of the revolt against Mubarak approached, and a liberal woman activist, Shaimaa Sabbagh, was killed at a protest on Saturday.
About 1,000 people marched in her funeral procession on Sunday. The health ministry said she had been shot in the face and back and interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif said an investigation into her death had begun, adding: “No one is above the law.”
“Shaima was killed in cold blood,” Medhat Al Zahid, vice president of the Socialist Popular Alliance party that Sabbagh belonged to, told a news conference.
Mr El Sisi’s crackdown has neutralised the Brotherhood but failed to end an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.
A curfew imposed in north Sinai was extended for three months, authorities said. Militants based in the Sinai have killed hundreds of police and soldiers since Mr Morsi’s removal. They have pledged support for ISIL.
* Reuters
