• Analysis: Egypt soccer sentence riots show a country out of control

    Str / EPA

    Egyptian security forces keep watch as protesters burn tires in Port Said, east of Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2013.

    By Charlene Gubash, Producer, NBC News

    News analysis

    CAIRO -- If there is any doubt that security in Egypt is on the skids, witness Saturday’s events that lay bare a nation where  police are now unable or unwilling to maintain law and order and citizens no longer fear authority. The country held its breath Saturday morning after a judge declared verdicts against suspects accused of involvement in the killing of 72 soccer fans after a match in the city of Port Said last January. The initial verdict of 21 death sentences sparked weeks of riots in Suez Canal cities.

    The judge upheld 21 sentences of death by hanging, sentenced two senior police officers to 15-year terms, 22 civilians to terms ranging from life to one year, and acquitted 28 other individuals. The Ultras, rabid supporters of the Ahly soccer team whose fans were targeted in last year’s attack, went on a rampage because seven policemen had been among those acquitted.

    They torched and ransacked the Cairo headquarters of Egypt’s Football Association and set fire to the nearby Police Club. After the blaze was brought under control, workers emerged from the still smoldering building with arms full of trophies they had salvaged. The Ministry of Health says five men were injured in the blazes. Two helicopters carrying suspended baskets of water flew overhead.  Protests continued on the main street bordering the Nile, where the head of Emergency Services says one demonstrator has succumbed to tear gas inhalation.


    Attacks appeared to be continuing into the evening. Protesters began to set fire to shops affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in downtown Cairo later on Saturday. Ultras posted this warning on their Facebook page today: “What happened today in Cairo is only the beginning of our rage. Even more of it will surface if all officials involved in the massacre are not put on trial. We will not be placated by the sentencing of just two police ‘dogs’.”

    In Port Said, citizens enraged that the judge confirmed the death sentence of 21 fellow residents took to the streets. Some unsuccessfully tried to impede ferry traffic across the Suez Canal and set speedboats adrift. Egypt’s naval presence along the Suez Canal was reinforced to prevent any further attempts by protesters to disrupt shipping. On Friday, police forces pulled out of the Suez Canal leaving the military in charge after failing to quell weeks of rioting.

    Meanwhile, thousands of police throughout Egypt have gone on strike because they believe interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim is too close to the Muslim Brotherhood and has politicized the ministry, pitting police against the people and putting civilians in danger. Sixty police stations have closed down in protest. Police complain they are often put in positions during demonstrations where they are obliged to either attack civilians and face possible charges of police brutality or risk their own lives, and they have demanded Ibrahim’s resignation. In response, the Minister has sacked the head of the Central Security Forces.

    Al Gamaa Al-Islamiya, a former militant Islamic Group turned peaceful, announced in a statement they would form security militias to fill the security void in the southern city of Assiut, where police are striking.

    To further add to the chaos, Egypt’s interior ministry raised the level of emergency in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday after receiving information that jihadist groups intend to attack police installations in the Sinai. 

    Angry soccer fans took to the streets of Cairo Saturday, storming Egypt's soccer federation headquarters and setting it on fire. Two people were killed. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

  • 1 dead as Egypt soccer-riot death sentences spark violence

    Mohammed Asad / AP

    An injured security official is carried from a police officers club in an upscale Cairo neighborhood, after fires were set by protesters angry about death sentences imposed on soccer fans over a deadly riot.

    By Yousri Mohamed and Marwa Awad, Reuters

    Egyptian protesters torched buildings in Cairo and tried unsuccessfully to disrupt international shipping on the Suez Canal, as a court ruling on a deadly soccer riot stoked rage in a country beset by worsening security.

    The ruling enraged residents of Port Said, at the northern entrance of the Suez Canal, by confirming death sentences imposed on 21 local soccer fans for their role in the riot last year when more than 70 people were killed.


    But the court also angered rival fans in Cairo by acquitting a further 28 defendants that they wanted punished, including seven members of the police force which is reviled across society for its brutality under deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

    Security sources said one person had died in Cairo from the effects of tear gas and 65 people were injured, some by rubber bullets.

    Saturday's protests and violence underlined how Islamist President Mohamed Mursi is struggling - two years after Mubarak's overthrow - to maintain law and order at a time of economic and political crisis.

    On Thursday Egypt's election committee scrapped a timetable under which voting for the lower house of parliament should have begun next month, following a court ruling that threw the entire polling process into confusion.

    The stadium riot took place last year at the end of a match in Port Said between local side Al-Masry and Cairo's Al-Ahly team. Spectators were crushed when panicked crowds tried to escape from the stadium after a pitch invasion by Al-Masry supporters. Others fell or were thrown from terraces.

    Judge Sobhy Abdel Maguid, listing the names of the 21 Al-Masry fans, said the Cairo court had confirmed "the death penalty by hanging". He also sentenced five more people to life imprisonment while others out of a total of 73 defendants received shorter terms.

    In Cairo, local Al-Ahly fans vented their rage at the acquittals, setting fire to a police social club, the nearby offices of the Egyptian soccer federation and a branch of a fast food chain, sending smoke rising over the capital.

    A military helicopter scooped up water from the nearby Nile and dropped it on the burning buildings.

    "Ultra" fans, the section of Al-Ahly supporters responsible for much of the violence, said they awaited retribution for those who had planned the Port Said "massacre".

    "What is happening today in Cairo is the beginning of the anger. Wait for more if the remaining elements embroiled in this massacre are not revealed," the Ultras said in a statement.

    PROTESTERS TARGET CANAL

    Mohamed Muslemany / NBC News

    A man rescues soccer trophies from the Egyptian Football Association after the building was torched by angry soccer fans.

    In Port Said, where the army took over security in the city center from the police on Friday, about 2,000 residents who want the local fans spared from execution blockaded ferries crossing the Suez Canal. Witnesses said youths also untied moored speedboats used to supply shipping on the waterway, hoping the boats would drift into the path of passing vessels.

    Military police recovered five speedboats and brought them back to shore, but two were still drifting, one witness said.

    Authorities controlling the Canal, an artery for global trade and major income source for the Egyptian government, said through traffic had not been affected. "The canal ... is safe and open to all ships passing through it," Suez Canal Authority spokesman Tarek Hassanein told the MENA news agency.

    The canal is a major employer in Port Said and, until now, protesters had declared it off-limits for the demonstrations apart from on one occasion when red balloons marked "SOS" were floated into the waterway.

    In a separate security threat, the Interior Ministry ordered police in the Sinai peninsula to raise their state of emergency after receiving intelligence that jihadists might attack their forces there, MENA reported.

    Officials have expressed growing worries about security in the desert region which borders Israel and is home to a number of tourist resorts. In August last year Islamist militant gunmen killed at least 15 Egyptian policemen in an assault on a police station on the border with Israel, before seizing two military vehicles and attempting to storm the frontier.

    Last Thursday, Bedouin gunmen briefly held the head of U.S. oil major ExxonMobil in Egypt and his wife. The Britons, who had been heading for a Sinai resort, were released unharmed.

    General unrest is rife as the Egypt's poor suffer badly from the economic crisis. Foreign currency reserves have slid to critically low levels and are now little more than a third of what they were in the last days of Mubarak.

    The Egyptian pound has lost 14 percent against the dollar since the 2011 revolution and the budget deficit is soaring to unmanageable levels due to the huge cost of fuel and food subsidies. Egypt agreed a $4.8 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund last November, but Cairo requested a delay due to street violence the following month.

    Analysts say the chances of an IMF deal are slim until the electoral chaos is sorted out, but question how much longer the government can hold out without international funding.

    Unrest has plagued Port Said since the death sentences were first handed down to the Al-Masry supporters in January, with locals fighting pitched battles with police. At least eight people have been killed this week, including three policemen.

    The Cairo court also jailed two senior police officers for 15 years on Saturday for their handling of the riot.

    However, some fans in Cairo were happy with the confirmation of the death sentences. "This is a just verdict and has calmed us all down. Our martyrs have been vindicated," Said Sayyid, 21, told Reuters.

    Related:

    At least 30 die in clashes over Egypt soccer disaster verdict

    'People are dying in front of us': Scores killed in riots after Egypt soccer match

    This story was originally published on Sat Mar 9, 2013 4:12 AM EST

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Thousands attend funerals in Port Said as Egypt's stability teeters

    AP

    Egyptian protesters clash with police in Port Said on Sunday. Some in the crowd fired guns and police responded with volleys of tear gas, witnesses said. State television reported 110 were injured.

    By John Newland, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The funerals keep coming in Egypt.

    Thousands turned out Monday in Port Said to attend funerals for the seven people killed in the previous day's violence, which broke out as mourners paid their respects to 33 people who had died in riots the day before. The riots were a mass reaction to a judge sentencing 21 people to die for their roles last year in a soccer stadium brawl that killed 74 people, some of them thrown from balconies, after a match between teams from Cairo and Port Said.

    Meanwhile, a man in Cairo was shot dead during a fifth day of clashes during protests against the government of President Mohammed Morsi, Reuters reported, citing a source in the Interior Ministry. The 46-year-old man was not taking part in the protest on the edge of Tahrir Square, and it was unclear who shot him. Police have fired volleys of teargas at stone-throwing protesters around the square.

    The news agency also reported that Egypt's cabinet had approved draft legislation that would expand the army's powers, giving soldiers the right to arrest civilians and help police with security as the death toll from demonstrations reached 50.

    Port Said and two other cities along the Suez Canal where violence has flared -- Ismailia and Suez -- prepared for their first night under curfew Monday after Morsi declared a monthlong state of emergency in them.

    The most recent violence began Friday, the second anniversary of the "Arab Spring" uprising that felled the government of Hosni Mubarak. Protesters say that Islamists are taking over Morsi's government and their revolution and that they don't want to live under the strict rule that the Muslim Brotherhood might impose.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Related:

    Analysis: Egyptians fear decades of Brotherhood rule

    PhotoBlog: Weekend violence in Egypt

     

  • Deadly clashes erupt after Egypt's Al-Masry soccer club is banned

    By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 6:07 a.m. ET: CAIRO -- One person was shot dead and at least 18 others were injured in overnight clashes between security forces and angry soccer fans in Egypt's Port Said, authorities said.

    Supporters of Al-Masry were upset because their team had been banned for two seasons in the wake of the country's worst stadium disaster.

    "Hundreds of angry fans clashed with military police after the decision was announced," one witness told Reuters.

    Citing the Al-Ahram newspaper, the BBC reported that a 13-year-old boy died in hospital after being shot in the back.

    NBC News reported that protests by Al-Masry supporters on Saturday also prevented thousands of workers from entering Port Said's investment zone.

    The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) banned Al-Masry on Friday following the pitch invasion that killed 74 fans last month. In that game, Al-Masry beat Cairo's Al-Ahly. However, some fans were upset for what they said were obscene signs raised by Al-Ahly club fans.

    Survivors of the stadium riot say men wielding batons, knifes, and fireworks streamed from Al-Masry stands and stormed the field to attack Al-Ahly fans, stabbing them, undressing them and tossing them off bleachers while the police looked on.

    At least 74 people were killed and hundreds more injured when rival soccer fans in Egypt rioted after a match. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Cairo.

    The melee sparked days of street protests. Most of the dead were members of Ultras Ahlawy, a group of avid politicized soccer fans who have long enmity with the police. Ultras has played a key role in the uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

    Egyptian prosecutors have indicted several top Al-Masry and security officials amid claims they conspired or were negligent during last month's violence.

    'Shot dead'
    The latest clashes began late Friday and continued into early Saturday, witnesses said.

    Military police fired shots in the air to disperse hundreds of soccer fans protesting outside the Suez Canal Authority building in Port Said.

    "One was shot dead, in the back, and 18 were injured in the clashes, two of them are suffering gunshot wounds," a medical source said.

    After soccer melee, Egypt learns tough lesson: Sharing blame

    Earlier, the EFA said in a statement that Al-Masry's soccer activities would be suspended for the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons. The club would be reinstated to the Premier League in the 2013/14 season.

    Port Said Stadium, where the stampede took place, would be closed for three years, the EFA said.

    Hired thugs?
    During the February pitch invasion, steel doors at the stadium were bolted shut, trapping fans trying to escape from the stands and dozens were crushed to death.

    Many fans blamed the government for failing to send enough police to the stadium given the tense build-up to the match, and many believe the violence was started by hired thugs. At least 1,000 people were injured.

    Prosecutors referred 75 people, including nine security officials in Port Said, to the criminal court on March 15 to face trial over the violence.  

    NBC News' Ayman Mohyeldin, msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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