CAIRO—A second day of violence Sunday after Egypt’s government deployed troops to the coastal city of Port Said has raised doubts about whether President Mohamed Morsi’s embattled government can contain the situation.
Thousands took to the streets of the coastal city of Port Said on Sunday in funeral processions for more than 30 people who were killed Saturday in clashes between protesters and police, after a court handed down death sentences to 21 people for their involvement in a deadly soccer riot last year.
By Sunday evening, three more were dead and hundreds of people had been injured over two days of fighting in the port city, as sounds of gunfire persisted. Residents said that security forces have contributed to the violence rather than bringing the situation under control.
Morsi would soon address the nation, state television reported.
At the heart of the crisis is a growing national frustration around the pursuit of justice two years after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak. Egyptians across the political spectrum complain that the abusive security forces cultivated under Mubarak’s rule have evaded punishment for crimes committed during the uprising and since his ouster.
Egypt’s court system remains deeply opaque and marred by allegations of corruption and politicized rulings.
While the clashes in Port Said were in response to Saturday’s soccer riot verdict, Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East expert at the Century Foundation, said the city’s crisis also reflected Egyptians’ growing frustration with Morsi and the slow pace of reforms.
“People no longer have confidence in the institutions of the state and they are willing to exercise that rejection through violence,” Hanna said.
Only two of the nearly 170 security officials and police officers charged with using violence against civilians over the past two years have been convicted, rights groups say.
A conflict last month over the religious character of Egypt’s new constitution that pits the Islamist government against a broad liberal and secular opposition has further degraded trust in the presidential palace.
Egyptians have increasingly vowed to take matters of justice into their own hands when verdicts are deemed unsatisfactory.
The Port Said riot in February 2012, the deadliest in Egypt’s history, followed a match between Cairo’s al-Ahly club team and Port Said’s al-Masry club team and left 74 people dead. Ahly fans, who claimed most of the victims as their own, threatened violence ahead of Saturday’s verdict in anticipation of light sentences.
But when death sentences followed for the 21 Port Said residents charged in the case, it was Port Said that erupted in anger. Fifty-two security forces also charged in the incident will not receive their verdicts until March.
Thousands of protesters marched through Port Said on Sunday in a funeral procession for the dozens who were killed in clashes Saturday when protesters tried to storm several police stations and the prison complex where the defendants were being kept.
Thousands took to the streets of the coastal city of Port Said on Sunday in funeral processions for more than 30 people who were killed Saturday in clashes between protesters and police, after a court handed down death sentences to 21 people for their involvement in a deadly soccer riot last year.
By Sunday evening, three more were dead and hundreds of people had been injured over two days of fighting in the port city, as sounds of gunfire persisted. Residents said that security forces have contributed to the violence rather than bringing the situation under control.
Morsi would soon address the nation, state television reported.
At the heart of the crisis is a growing national frustration around the pursuit of justice two years after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak. Egyptians across the political spectrum complain that the abusive security forces cultivated under Mubarak’s rule have evaded punishment for crimes committed during the uprising and since his ouster.
Egypt’s court system remains deeply opaque and marred by allegations of corruption and politicized rulings.
While the clashes in Port Said were in response to Saturday’s soccer riot verdict, Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East expert at the Century Foundation, said the city’s crisis also reflected Egyptians’ growing frustration with Morsi and the slow pace of reforms.
“People no longer have confidence in the institutions of the state and they are willing to exercise that rejection through violence,” Hanna said.
Only two of the nearly 170 security officials and police officers charged with using violence against civilians over the past two years have been convicted, rights groups say.
A conflict last month over the religious character of Egypt’s new constitution that pits the Islamist government against a broad liberal and secular opposition has further degraded trust in the presidential palace.
Egyptians have increasingly vowed to take matters of justice into their own hands when verdicts are deemed unsatisfactory.
The Port Said riot in February 2012, the deadliest in Egypt’s history, followed a match between Cairo’s al-Ahly club team and Port Said’s al-Masry club team and left 74 people dead. Ahly fans, who claimed most of the victims as their own, threatened violence ahead of Saturday’s verdict in anticipation of light sentences.
But when death sentences followed for the 21 Port Said residents charged in the case, it was Port Said that erupted in anger. Fifty-two security forces also charged in the incident will not receive their verdicts until March.
Thousands of protesters marched through Port Said on Sunday in a funeral procession for the dozens who were killed in clashes Saturday when protesters tried to storm several police stations and the prison complex where the defendants were being kept.