Clashes Continue in Egypt Leaving One Dead

As demonstrations continue in Egypt, clashes erupted near Cairo’s Tahrir Square, leaving one person dead during the aftermath of a mass rally on Friday. It was reported that Ahmed Serour was run over by security forces, as Omar Robert Hamilton, an activist, stated that amid the chaos, “They turned around, they didn’t seem to not know what they were doing. They drove off, and a couple of kids threw rocks at them. They drove around the corner, and the next thing is that a man is carried back, covered in blood.” However, Egypt’s “silent minority,” pro-government supporters, made their voice heard as they chanted pro-government slogans in Cairo’s Abbassiya district o Friday. Demonstrations broke out on Friday, calling for the removal of the ruling military leaders and rejecting the appointment of a new prime minster, Kamal el-Ganzouri.

The recent violence has cast a shadow of doubt over the upcoming elections supposed to be held on Monday, as an army source said “the ruling military council held separate talks with presidential candidates Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa.” Alarmed by the spike in violence, the U.S. urged Egyptian military leaders to hand over power to civilian rule through a quick transition period. However, Helen Cooper of the New York Times wrote that “In so doing, the president opened up a litany of risks, exposing a fault line between the United States and the Egyptian military which, perhaps more than any other entity in the region, has for 30 years served as the bulwark protecting a critical American concern in the Middle East: the 1979 Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.”