Egypt troops on alert over pro-Morsi protests
Soldiers seal off two Cairo squares as supporters of ousted president take to the streets seeking his reinstatement.
Egyptian troops have sealed off roads leading to Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square as supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi took to the streets again demanding his reinstatement, state media reported.
The official MENA news agency reported that military vehicles were stationed at entrances to the northern Cairo square on Tuesday.
The measure came after a call by Morsi’s supporters for nationwide demonstrations to mark two months since his July 3 removal by the military.
The military also blocked entrances to Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square, MENA reported.
On Monday, the Anti-Coup Alliance which is led by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, said the demonstrations would be held under the slogan: “The coup is terrorism.”
On Tuesday, a military court sentenced 11 Brotherhood members to life in prison for attacks on soldiers in the city of Suez.
Forty-five Brotherhood members were handed five-year prison sentences and eight were acquitted.
The military cracked down on sit-in protests by Morsi’s supporters on August 14, and hundreds died in clashes there as well as in violence in the rest of the country in what became the bloodiest day in Egypt’s recent history.
Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, served for only a year before the military removed him in the popularly-backed coup.