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AT LEAST ONE person was killed and 237 were hurt in clashes between supporters and opponents of Mohamed Morsi Wednesday, the health ministry said, as Egypt’s Islamist president prepared to address the nation on his first year in power.
Islamists had been holding a pro-Morsi rally in the Nile Delta city of Mansura when opponents began throwing rubbish at them and fighting erupted, a security official said.
Two people were taken to the intensive care unit with live bullet wounds, said the Mansura International Hospital, where the patients are being treated.
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Gehad al-Haddad, said one person was killed in the clashes.
The clashes come amid widespread tension ahead of planned anti-Morsi rallies on Sunday to coincide with the president’s first year in office.
Pro- and anti-Morsi gatherings are being held around the country, but confrontations have only erupted in Mansura, a security official said.
Morsi is to speak at 1930 GMT, to highlight his achievements.
In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 revolt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, hundreds of anti-Morsi protesters gathered to watch the president’s speech.
Some have announced they will begin a sit-in there.
Others have gathered outside the defence ministry, waving Egyptian flags and chanting against the president.
In Alexandria and several Nile Delta provinces, Islamist groups have held rallies in support of him.
Egypt is deeply polarised.
Morsi’s supporters say he is an elected president who is working to root out decades of corruption in state institutions. Any attempt to remove him from office would be a coup against democracy, they say.
His opponents accuse him of concentrating power in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood from which he hails and of failing the aspirations for freedom and social justice that inspired the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Egypt’s powerful army, which has been on the sidelines of politics since Morsi’s election, warned it would intervene if violence breaks out in the country.
The military has brought in reinforcements of troops and vehicles in key cities in order to protect vital establishments in case of potential unrest, security officials said.
The clashes come amid widespread tension ahead of mass anti-Morsi rallies planned on Sunday. With Islamist parties having called for their own rallies to support the president on Friday, there are fears of more unrest.
Organisers of a campaign dubbed Tamarod (rebellion in Arabic) say they have collected more than 15 million signatures in support of a snap presidential election just a year after Morsi took power.
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Sure wasn’t it the same reason they banned those ads when all those people started eating 3 shredded wheat in the morning.
@Tony Gordon: ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It’s just an add ffs, unfortunately people are still going to jump off cliffs whether this add is aired or not. NONSENSE!!
@paddyirishman: I guess the hope is that one of them might not and that they’ll seek help sooner than throw themselves to their death.
There’s something really ironic about seeing someone like yourself throw a wobbler online about an add being pulled, screaming that it’s nonsense… I mean, calm down, it’s just an add right?
Jeez what a snowflake. Someone please warn him about the add where Nicole Scherzinger walks into the door, don’t have a panic attack cos she makes a full recovery!
Amended ?????
The only way to amend this is to cut out everything before he gets out of the water …… The advertising agency behind this should have been hit with a hefty fine.
@Passing through this life: this kind of nonsense makes me want to jump off a cliff
@Passing through this life: just change the tag line “buy a Kia before you die (low km nearly new models on sale)”
@David Edwards: It might not cause you or for that matter me to do something stupid …… but this world is full of the truly stupid. Last year we had the incident of the guy who died from a fall from the cliff in Co Clare ….. and then there were the idiots during the storms …..
These people should not be encouraged or given ideas …… if only because of the financial cost to the Irish taxpayer ….
@David Edwards: Grow up, that’s not really too clever a thing to say now is it?
@Passing through this life: nice use of 5 ? You must have been really confused
@Passing through this life: Yes, because in the case of a person committing suicide all that matters is the taxpayer!
@Dotty Dunleary: Sorry if you missed my point …. my reference to “cost to the taxpayer” …. was to make a point to the idiots who think that it doesn’t effect them . I don’t begrudge this spending …. I also intended to make the point of the danger they put our rescue service personal in …. but accidently hit post.
@Passing through this life: It’s why the emergency services exist, and the personnel are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Hopefully they are never put in a position where there lives are endangered though!
@Passing through this life: is this not just called natural selection, using your analogy, think of how much money we could save trying not to swaddle the lemmings, But seriously its just an ad.
@Passing through this life: surely it would be cheaper for us not to swaddle every lemming from cradle to grave. But seriously its just an ad
7 year warranty though
Here we go again more PC bull
Snowflakes triggered again…
Fantastic
How does Superman get away with everything?
Some people just have too much time
idiotic ad
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