What a surprise. “Egypt’s Islamists Turn Violent,” by Bel Trew in Foreign Policy, August 8:
“They stamped on his face,” said his cousin, Aly al-Masry, 20, who told Sabet’s story from his bedside as he drifted in and out of consciousness. “He has three stab wounds, a bullet hole through his leg and stick marks all over his body. There are bruises where he was dragged along the asphalt.”
On the night of July 26, during clashes with supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy, Sabet, who is part of the April 6 Youth Movement that opposes the former leader, told Foreign Policy he was a victim of an armed assault by an Islamist mob. He says was dragged by pro-Morsy protesters to a nearby mosque, where a dozen other individuals were being held. There, he says, they tortured him for 14 hours.
The turmoil in Egypt has shown no sign of ending since Morsy’s ouster more than a month ago. And there are ominous signs that the violence is poised to worsen: The Egyptian government ordered the police last week to take “all the necessary measures” to disperse the two major pro-Morsy sit-ins that have been going on for more than a month, raising fears that the security services could once again open fire on Islamist demonstrators, as they have done previously. Meanwhile, President Adly Mansour delivered a speech on Aug. 7 declaring that the period of negotiations with the Muslim Brotherhood “ended today,” and other officials have denounced the Islamist protesters as “terrorists” contending the sit-ins are armed encampments that represent a danger to national security.
There is now mounting evidence that some Brotherhood loyalists within the pro-Morsy sit-ins — which up until now had remained largely peaceful — are indeed armed, and have committed what some human rights groups describe as torture against their political opponents. In interviews, multiple Egyptians who clashed with or observed the pro-Morsy sit-ins describe being beaten and fired on by Morsy supporters.
Amnesty International released a report on Aug. 2 in which anti-Morsy protesters recount being “captured, beaten, subjected to electric shocks or stabbed” at the Islamists’ two encampments in the Cairo districts of Nasr City and Giza. Ten citizens have reportedly filed torture complaints at local police stations, Amnesty reported. And the violence has even claimed lives: “[W]e were told by the morgue five bodies bearing the marks of torture were found near both camps,” says Mohamed Lofty, an Amnesty researcher….