Cairo, Jan 3 (IANS) At least six people were killed and 42 injured Friday in clashes across Egypt between supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and security forces, the country’s health ministry said.
According to a statement issued by the ministry, three people were killed in Cairo, one in Alexandria, one in Ismailia and one in Fayoum.
Following the Friday prayers, hundreds of Morsi’s supporters took to the main squares in Egypt to protest against the armed forces, police and the new draft constitution, Xinhua reported.
The protestors in the Faysal district in Giza hurled a Molotov cocktail at an armoured police vehicle and set it on fire. They also blocked the roads and fired at police officers, the official news agency MENA reported.
State TV’s footage showed hundreds of Morsi’s loyalists protesting in eastern Cairo’s Nasr city, carrying posters against the interim government and interim Defence Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the ouster of Morsi in July 2013.
Egyptian security forces have intensified their presence in Cairo’s main streets following calls for renewed demonstrations by the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, a pro-Morsi coalition led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The coalition urged the people “to continue their rage and peaceful resistance” in preparation for another demonstration Jan 8, the date set for the second session of Morsi’s trial over charges related to inciting violence and murdering protestors outside the presidential palace in early December 2012.
The Islamists’ protests are in defiance of the government’s anti-protest law and its recent decision to declare the Brotherhood as “a terrorist group”, only one day after a deadly blast hit a security building in Daqahliya province.