Egypt’s government warned yesterday it will use an “iron hand” to ensure national security after clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo killed 12 people and injured scores.
Authorities would “strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation’s security,” Justice Minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi told reporters after cabinet crisis talks.
Mr Gindi said the government would “immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief” using anti-terror laws to combat those “threatening national security.”
The statement came at the end of nearly four hours of cabinet talks and after Egypt’s military rulers had said 190 people detained in connection with the clashes would face military trial.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since a popular uprising toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February, said the move was a “deterrent” to all those who sought to sow strife in the country.
Saturday’s clashes in the working class neighbourhood of Imbaba in northwestern Cairo left 12 people dead and 232 injured, state television said.
Among those killed were four Christians and six Muslims, while two other bodies were still unidentified.
The two groups had clashed after Muslims attacked the Coptic Saint Mena church in Imbaba in a bid to free a Christian woman they alleged was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam.
SinceMr Mubarak was ousted, Egypt has been gripped by insecurity and sectarian unrest, amid – by the government’s admission – a “counter-revolution” by remnants of the old regime aimed at sowing chaos.
“Egypt’s people, the noble police and the great army are standing together to foil the counter-revolution,” Mr Gindi said.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the army blamed “forces of evil and darkness” for trying to “tear the national fabric.”
Yesterday afternoon, scuffles broke out between some 400 protesters denouncing the sectarian clashes and dozens of “neighbourhood thugs”, a security official said.
Muslim and Christian protesters gathered in front of Cairo’s High Court ahead of a march for national unity in the centre of the city when they were pelted with stones by dozens of men from a nearby neighbourhood.
The two groups clashed, throwing stones and rocks at each other before dispersing. The protesters regrouped outside state television’s headquarters, where their numbers began to swell.
In Imbaba – an overcrowded maze of residential buildings and shops – Muslim and Christian residents pleaded with the visiting interior minister, Mansur Essawy, to boost security on the streets, the official Mena news agency said.