Dispersing Protestors

(Updates below this introduction)

Early this morning, August 14, military and security forces arrived to surround the demonstration sites

Map of Cairo gives some perspective of where different events are
taking place.  The smaller sit-in at Al Nahda Square is near
Cairo University on the west side of the Nile in Giza.
Rabaa Mosque is east of city center and
where the largest sit-in of Pro-Morsi groups have been stationed
for more than 40 days; leaders from the stage have said that even if they
are moved they will simply gather again in different locations.

in Cairo.  These moves have been expected for several days, if not weeks, as negotiations have continued to be fruitless and the government has expressly stated that this would happen unless protestors moved on their own.  For weeks, military have been dropping leaflets urging individuals to leave--especially families with children; early broadcast reports indicate that loudspeakers and additional leaflets were used to warn the "camps" that this would take place this morning.

We remain safe and all is calm on our end of Cairo.  Across the river at Cairo University and north toward the sit-ins, the scenes are bloody, smoke and tear gas fill skies, and there has to be a great deal of panic.

A couple of notes about these  events:

First, this "sit-in" is well-over 40 days.  The communities where thousands have been gathering have felt like they are under siege.  There have been reports of continual harassment of residents, and businesses in the areas have suffered; many residents have left the area for safety, better sanitation, and their own peace of mind.  There is the right to assemble that I totally support, but when that assembly creates a hostile even "hostage" type environment, then your right has impeded the rights of others - as a result, there have been reports of clashes of residents and store owners with protestors.

These are not just people gathered and sitting in the streets.  They have not only put in tents, they have built two-story makeshift housing units complete with wash areas, linoleum floors, and more with lumber.  There are credible reports of generator and fuel storage sites with guards, fully developed kitchen areas for cooking and preparing food, and there were plans to deal with the sanitation issues by building a toilet facilities, even possibly breaking into sewage lines to do it.  This of course creates a serious safety concern as water and electricity lines and housing units are continually added on to accommodate the crowds--what happens in case of a fire, or even a propane explosion?  Not only does this pose issues of how would you get in to correct the danger, but also, how difficult would it be to contain, and how well could people flee?

These are not like peaceful, non-resistant sit-ins that you may remember from Civil Rights Movement in the 60's in America.  These demonstrators in Cairo are not sitting peacefully and waiting for police or security forces to drag them away one by one.  These protestors are arming themselves with sticks, rocks, and putting on hard-hats, motorcycle helmets, and any kind of protective "armor" they can to beat and inflict harm on anyone not in their group attempting to come in.   Reports of weapons and firearms among the demonstrators have been made in the past.  As a result, among the early reports of the growing number of dead and injured are at least 2 military/police officers.

PRAY FOR EGYPT!
We are monitoring all of this and we'll post any story links here with continual updates here as this story unfolds.

UPDATES

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Thursday, 9:30 pm Update
The morning began slowly and with a somber stillness here in Maadi.  There was a bit of an overcast sky actually, a strange gray from the west in the early morning hours that burned off quickly with the rising sun to create one of the most humid days here that I can remember in awhile.

Few were stirring early, that is before 8 am, and those I saw had a tired look upon their face, and no one seemed to be saying much.  Contemplation and mortification of 100's dead within hours and the morning after questions of "what have we done?", "where do we go from here?", and "will there be more today?"

We actually moved to and fro throughout Maadi quite a bit today.  There is much to do for us as we

image appears on this Ahram Online article with caption:
Damages at St George Coptic Orthodox Church
in Assiut (Photo: nilerevolt.wordpress.com)

anticipate hosting dozens in welcoming them to Cairo--that's right, people like us are still crazy enough to arrive and start new jobs in this uncertain city in an even more uncertain time.  We spent some of the morning responding to phone calls and questions of some new and nervous expats.  We compared notes with more seasoned expats, and we checked various news reports.

The list of churches and Christian businesses or families attacked was provided through this link - I cannot verify the truth of every incident, but I can say that several of these on that linked list have appeared in various reports we have read in the past 36 hours.  I have been in touch with one of the families of the Church of God national leaders, and he confirms that none of the pastors, Christians, or buildings of the Church of God throughout Egypt have been harmed or targeted.  This is good news as the situation in Upper (southern) Egypt is more severe and there are several churches in that area.

This was an important read, and not just because it echoes some of our points on this blog, but because it states that a "massacre is not combat", bringing an important point of clarity to western media stories over this tragedy.  He further points out this is not a "military verses MB" situation - it is much bigger, and more complicated, than that.

And later this evening, Al Jazeera English reported on the events in Cairo today in the aftermath of yesterdays sad events, and their story includes a statement of clashes spreading into Maadi - where we live and where the kids go to school.  This was curious to us because, as I said, we were out and about in Maadi yesterday afternoon and today.  We did not witness any clashes.  We heard yesterday of an attempt, and saw a picture, of a group trying to build a stage for a new sit-in not too far from the school - police forces quickly showed up and put an end to that.  We also almost ran into our first march--MB protestors were directed to have marches throughout the city--and one of them were moving against traffic down one of the flyovers we needed to take home.  We saw it, adjusted our route, and came back a different way.  We heard that things got heated there--mostly because angry motorists were getting into it with the marchers--the police had to come in response to the marchers damaging cars and angry motorists.  We have also heard that situation is now cleared up; though there were reports of injuries, some even to gunfire, but we cannot confirm this.  We can confirm that it messed up a lot of traffic as people were trying to get home ahead of curfew.

By the way, everyone seems to be obeying curfew for the most part; though there was a funny tweet of a lady out past curfew who told the police officer that shisha (the Middle Eastern smoking past time) was more important than curfew--the police officer agreed and allowed her to get to the cafe!

All kidding aside, no one is laughing over the events of yesterday.  Even angry motorists sympathize with the frustration and anger that the protestors are experiencing today.  No one is making light of the loss of life--a number that continues to rise.  Yet, sympathy runs short when churches are attacked, when government buildings in new, peaceful neighborhoods become the new target of frustration -- residents in different areas are saying, "enough is enough."

Whether or not it will be enough remains to be seen.  Tomorrow is Friday and that begins the weekend, which has usually been high time for demonstration and frustration for the past couple years in Egypt.  We will see if it has been enough, or whether more blood will needlessly be spilled this weekend.


7:00 pm Update
So, we now have a State of Emergency in Egypt - essentially, the interim President has said the police can not get a handle on this by themselves and he has directed the military to officially help.  It was earlier assumed that the military had been a part of helping all along, but apparently they only helped in dropping leaflets.  This may sound like a terrible thing to those on the outside -- but to those of us on the ground here in Cairo, this is good in that, yes, the Police are having a hard time keeping up with all that is happening in every governorate.  Having the military assist will hopefully end what would otherwise turn into a long, bloody game of cat and mouse.  This Ahram Online article outlines what the state of emergency edict implies.

In addition, we now have a curfew :(  This only makes sense -- if you want to round up the trouble makers, try to get the law abiding citizens out of the way and work through the night arresting anyone out where they shouldn't be.  Unfortunately, this really interrupts a lot of business in the process - not to mention church and school schedules as this is supposed to continue for the next month!!!  We were scheduled to host 90+ people between Thursday and Saturday welcome events in the evening -- we've creatively altered plans into one daytime event that will be a good challenge to our hospitality skills ;)

Check out the picture below left, tweeted and retweeted.  I first saw it on a retweet of @BuzzFeedAndrew with this caption, "Egyptian woman stands between a wounded youth and bulldozer during clashes today" -- the picture on the right, less circulated so far but increasing shows what happened after the woman got the bulldozer's attention. 

Many are extremely disappointed at the news of Vice President Mohamed El-Baradei resigning over today's events, stating that he did not agree with this decision of clearing out the protestors.  We will see if other interim government leaders follow suit.

Some of those in the Rabaa protest have decided to take the offer of safe exits according to this brief Ahram Online report--we hope that many more will follow and lay down any weapons in the process--for good.

So - a lot is still happening and we'll be re-tweeting through the night.  If there are any other major developments, we'll post it here in an update.  I'm hopeful that we'll be able to just rest, and pray for Egypt.  We pray that order and security can be restored quickly, without any further loss of life; we pray that those attempting to be heard by violence and vandalism will be stopped, and for leaders to have wisdom and humility to bring various sides together.



4:00 pm Update:

Fighting continues at the Rabaa sit-in, degenerating into a battle-like standoff between armed protestors

This photo by Mostafa Hussein accompanies an Al Arabiya article
reporting on the burning of 3 Coptic churches in Egypt.

and military/security forces.  Joining the military are the residents in around the sit-in site, and caught in the middle are other residents, a few reporters, and countless families who came for the peaceful protest and now find themselves in the line of fire.

In the continuing Ahram Online blog on today's events, it is reported (and seen on other news sites) that the Egypt Presidency has directed military to support the police in this ongoing situation, and that a "state of emergency" has been declared for the next month.  It is unclear what this state of emergency will mean (curfews? military's ability to arrest citizens?) and how this will be received and potential impacts across the diverse city.

Muslim Brotherhood is calling this a massacre -- and the loss of life should not be diminished, even if the MB spokespersons are exaggerating the numbers killed.  Twitter reports, including several journalist in or near the fray, have referenced that the chants of the protestors and the statements of those interviewed uplift this as "God's cause", making this a religious statement not a political one.

As we read reports from various sources, it is shameful to report that while some are fighting back against military and security forces, others have taken their attack to church buildings and homes or business owned by Christians.  There are multiple reports of church burnings throughout Egypt--all official reports seem to indicate targeting Coptic church buildings; we do not have any confirmation of other type of Christian churches being attacked.

I'm a little amazed at the various governments and groups denouncing the "excessive use of force" by the military and security forces.  There seems to be little regard for how such force may or may not have been provoked as military/security forces positioned themselves and made appeals for people to use provided exits of safe passage.  How can military/security forces move to peacefully remove protestors who are throwing stones, beating with sticks, and shooting everything from homemade firearms to automatic rifles??

Again, one of the impressive things about the 1960's era Civil Rights "peaceful resistance" campaigns

3h

@Kemety tweeted this photo with this caption 

"Peaceful pro-Morsi protestors with a peacfeful 

machine gun that shoots flowers!!!"

is watching video of them being picked up one by one and carried to police vehicles to be transported for booking.  This is not peaceful protesting and resistance--bringing in and using guns, erecting barricades to hide behind and keep the police away, creating a "field hospital" in advance to treat wounds that you know you will incur, checking identification cards of people before they can enter your protest and beating/robbing those who don't pass your criteria, holding interrogations inside your protest and encouraging the gathered to martyrdom--this is not the Civil Rights movement.

AND the interim government, despite continual rebuffed overtures for "negotiations", is there not a better way to handle this?  Perimeters, an embargo, arrests -- could there not have been another plan of action, even if it took months longer to fully implement?  And why was there no thought of protecting the Christian communities who had already seen some targeting in Upper Egypt since the ouster of Morsi on July 3?

We are but guests and observers of this continuing tragedy as it unfolds.  We want to believe the best and love the least, while encouraging all of Egypt to the greatest possible outcomes and future.  All of this scares away tourists and potential investments; existing businesses get anxious, and creative leaders look for other opportunities.  It's hard to rebuild when so much more effort is given to destroying one another week after week.  While hundreds die and thousands fight, millions suffer today and for months ahead.

We pray for peace and a quick, miraculous resolution.

More updates to come...

10:15am Update:

Fears of what a forced-removal of demonstrators would like are being actualized this morning in Cairo. Reports of dozens dead are confirmed -- while Muslim Brotherhood spokespersons have said as many as 250 have been killed.  It is difficult to trust early Muslim Brotherhood reports when they have quickly posted (on multiple occasions) pictures of dead Syrian children as casualties of local events in order to spark outrage and sympathy through the media in the past couple months.

A couple notes from this Al Arabiya report

- According to broadcast reports, Al Nahda square near Cairo Univeristy and the zoo has been cleared.  Security forces are continuing to search the area for weapons and anyone attempting to impede the efforts to clear out the area.

- This is likely going to wage for hours--potentially even days.  While the Muslim Brotherhood and "legitimacy alliance" spokespersons are telling the media about the crimes against humanity, there are also reports circulating that they are simultaneously encouraging their supporters to take to the street and even join the fight at Rabaa to prevent this massacre.  Yet, it seems that this will only increase the massacre as a few fight with single fire weapons and most fight with throwing rocks at armed military forces.

The events at the larger Rabaa sit-in are an all out battle -- not just between security forces and demonstrators, but also likely residents in the area.  Demonstrators have constructed barricades of cars, fires, and paving stones to keep out security forces; demonstrators or residents (unclear which) have been seen on rooftops throwing rocks and large stones down toward the street level.  

There clearly is the sound of gunfire throughout this video report from CNN - the reporter is not near the frontline of what is happening, but he shows that the street that he came in on is already blocked as demonstrators have parked cars to further block access into (and out of) the area of confrontation.