Emeute au Caire – 29 juin 2011

Rage at Police Fuels Egypt Rioting

online.wsj.com

Worst Violence Since Mubarak’s Ouster Leaves 1,000 Injured, Raises Doubts Over Pre-Election Security

Smoke billows from a burning police booth as protesters clashed in front of interior ministry headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday.

CAIRO—The Egyptian military intervened Wednesday afternoon to quell the biggest riots since the country’s former president fell in February, as new uprisings stymie the country’s newly reformed civilian police force and threaten to delay the country’s transition to democratic rule.

As many as 5,000 protesters, many of them family members of those killed in Egypt’s February uprising, overwhelmed the country’s riot police Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

More than 1,000 people suffered light injuries from rock-throwing and tear gas, the Ministry of Health reported, but only 16 people remained hospitalized Wednesday afternoon. Police arrested 40 people, including an American and a British national, according to MENA, Egypt’s official state news agency.

The renewed violence, and the police’s apparent inability to control Cairo’s streets without military assistance, mark a significant setback for Egypt’s provisional government, which had sought to re-establish internal security before guiding the country toward parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

The Egyptian military intervened Wednesday to quell the biggest riots since the country’s former president fell in February. Matt Bradley has details from Cairo.

The abiding instability, along with paroxysms of sectarian violence over the past several months, come as several mostly secular political leaders say Egypt isn’t ready to complete its transition to democracy November’s scheduled presidential elections. Whether Egypt’s police can offer adequate security for parliamentary elections is already a point of anxiety for the transitional government.

In contrast with recent protests that had clear political aims, the past day’s violence revived Egypt’s police as a focus of public anger. Police brutality and corruption was a primary grievance of the protesters who toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Those protests reached a turning point when the police yielded control of the streets to Egypt’s more-trusted military, before melting largely from sight. Since then, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior has sought to earn public trust by reform from within as its forces have trickled back onto streets. The ministry oversees regular police as well as Egypt’s Central Security Forces—a paramilitary law-enforcement agency normally tasked with riot control—and Homeland Security, the successor to Egypt’s reviled State Security agency. Read more…