Protests grip Egyptian canal city
2013-02-18 08:49
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Cairo - Thousands of Egyptians on Sunday closed down
government offices and factories in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, demanding
justice for dozens of people killed in clashes with police, witnesses said.
Demonstrators also shut down schools and banks and blocked a
main railway route, but their protests did not impact traffic through the
strategic Suez Canal, a canal official said.
The marchers were demanding justice for at least 40
protesters killed in clashes with police in late January after a court
sentenced 21 soccer fans from the city to death over a deadly football riot
last year.
In February 2012, 74 people, mostly supporters of the Cairo
Al-Ahly club, were killed in a football riot in Port Said.
Home fans were held to blame, with Al-Ahly supporters
pledging civil disobedience in Cairo if the court acquitted the Port Said
residents.
Last month's violence in Port Said and two other Suez Canal
cities prompted President Mohammed Morsi to call in the military and declare
emergency law there.
January's clashes coincided with the second anniversary of a
popular uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak, bringing in a period
of military rule and then the Islamist Morsi's election last June.
Morsi has since had to contend with mass rallies led by a
secular opposition and almost weekly violent protests by opponents of his
Muslim Brotherhood movement.
