[By evening, fighting in
the streets had left at least 30 people dead, mostly from gunfire, and injured
more than 300. Residents said they were afraid to leave their homes. Doctors
said the local hospital was overloaded with casualties and pleaded for help.
Rioters sacked and burned a police barracks; attacked police stations, the Port
Said power plant and the jail, where the convicted men were being held; and
closed off all roads to the city as well as the railroad station.]
By David D. Kirkpatrick And Mayy
El Sheikh
 |
Tara
Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
A protester threw a
tear-gas canister back toward police officers in Cairo
on Saturday. More Photos »
|
CAIRO — Egypt’s
new government lost control of a major city, Port Said, on Saturday as
rampaging soccer fans attacked the main jail, drove police officers from the
streets and cut off all access to the city.
Set off by the
sentencing of 21 Port Said soccer fans to death, the rioting was the sharpest
challenge yet to the efforts of Egypt’s new Islamist rulers to re-establish
order after the two years of turmoil that have followed the overthrow of Hosni
Mubarak, Egypt’s autocratic president.
By evening, fighting in
the streets had left at least 30 people dead, mostly from gunfire, and injured
more than 300. Residents said they were afraid to leave their homes. Doctors
said the local hospital was overloaded with casualties and pleaded for help.
Rioters sacked and burned a police barracks; attacked police stations, the Port
Said power plant and the jail, where the convicted men were being held; and
closed off all roads to the city as well as the railroad station.
President Mohamed Morsi
canceled a foreign trip to deal with the crisis at home and instead met with
the National Defense Council, which includes the nation’s top military leaders.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry acknowledged that its security forces
were unable to control the violence and urged that political leaders to try to
calm the rioters.
By 8 p.m., a spokesman
for the Egyptian military said its troops had moved in and secured vital
facilities, including the prison, the Mediterranean port, and the Suez Canal.
But in telephone interviews, residents said the streets remained lawless. “I’m
worried for my sister and mother,” said Ahmed Zangir, 21. “I could run or do
something, but it is not safe for them to get out.”
Mr. Zangir added: “Thugs
are abusing the opportunity. They are everywhere.”
Friday was the second
anniversary of the revolt that toppled Mr. Mubarak, an occasion that had
already set off clashes between protesters and security forces in Cairo and
other cities. Those battles began Thursday and continued for a third day on
Saturday in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria. In Suez, where two police officers and
seven protesters were killed on Friday, protesters attacked police stations and
attempted to set fire to a central security building.
The anniversary battles
were fueled by a combination of hostility toward the country’s new Islamist
leaders and frustration with the meager rewards of the revolution so far. But
those battles were more isolated, typically confined to just a few blocks
around symbols of government power, like the Interior Ministry headquarters in
Cairo or the headquarters of the provincial government in Suez.
In contrast, the escalating
chaos that enveloped Port Said over the soccer riot sentencing posed a far
greater challenge to the Islamist leaders, who have pledged a new era of
respect for the law.
It was unclear how the
fledgling government might regain control of the city without either a brutal
crackdown on the mob or capitulation to its demands. And either alternative
could further inflame the streets in Cairo and around Egypt.
The information minister
said the National Defense Council had the authority to impose a curfew or a
state of emergency over any trouble spot. But in an illustration of the
political risks to any perception of a crackdown, a spokesman for the
president, Yassir Ali, declared a few hours later that there was no intention
to impose a curfew on Port Said.
In a television
interview, Gen. Osama Ismail, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry,
acknowledged that the violence had spiraled beyond the control of the security
forces. “The solution isn’t a security solution,” he said. “We urge the
political and patriotic leaders and forces to intervene to calm the situation.”
The case that set off
the riot grew out of a deadly brawl last February between
rival groups of hard-core fans of soccer teams from Cairo and Port Said at a
match in Port Said. The hard-core fans, called Ultras, are known for their
appetite for violence against either rival fans or the police. Some had
smuggled knives and other weapons into the stadium, security officials said at
the time.
Seventy-four people were
killed and over 1,000 injured in the soccer riot. Many died after being
trampled under the stampeding crowds or falling from stadium balconies,
according to forensic testimony later reported in the state news media.
It was the worst soccer
riot in Egyptian history and among the worst in the world. Many political
figures, including members of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, initially sought
to blame a counterrevolutionary conspiracy orchestrated by Mubarak loyalists or
the Interior Ministry.
But prosecutors
ultimately charged 21 Port Said fans with attacking their Cairo rivals and
charged nine security officers with negligence. On Saturday, a judge in Cairo
convicted the 21 fans of murder before passing sentence. Six of them remain
fugitives.
The verdict was awaited
with acute anxiety because any outcome risked the fury of the Ultras in either
Port Said or Cairo. To warn of their wrath if the Port Said defendants were
acquitted, the Cairo Ultras staged several raucous protests last week in
anticipation of the verdict, temporarily closing bridges and subways lines and
threatening the Egyptian stock exchange.
The trial was held in
Cairo instead of Port Said because of the fear of violence between the two
groups of Ultras. For the same reason, the Interior Ministry declined to
transfer the defendants to the Cairo courtroom to hear the verdict, leaving
them in detention in their home city.
Most of those killed in
Port Said on Saturday died of bullet wounds, hospital officials said. It was
unclear who shot first, but witnesses said some of the civilian protesters
brought shotguns or homemade firearms to attack the prison. And after two
security officers were killed, the gunfire escalated sharply there and around
the city, witnesses and officials said. All of the other people killed were
believed to be civilians.
Rioters also attacked
members of the news media, damaging television cameras and cutting off live
broadcasts.
Many said the severity
of the penalty was out of step with the light verdicts handed down in
high-profile cases against members of the old government. The soccer fans were
sentenced to death for a brawl that killed several dozen people. But no police
officer or security official has yet been held responsible for the killing of
800 civilian demonstrators during the 18 days of protests two years ago. The
only people convicted were Mr. Mubarak and his interior minister, and those verdicts were
overturned this month.
“Where are the officers
of the Ministry of Interior and the military council in this verdict?” Mahmoud
Affifi, a spokesman for the left-leaning April 6 group, told the state
newspaper Al Ahram, referring to the generals who ruled Egypt for 18 months
after Mr. Mubarak.
The Muslim Brotherhood,
the Islamist group allied with Mr. Morsi, said in a statement that it blamed
the news media for inciting violence against legitimately elected authorities.
The group also castigated leaders of the political opposition for “silence
instead of condemning these crimes, and even in some cases welcoming them.”
Those plotting the violence
“must be condemned by all members of the society, and they must be held
accountable according to the provisions of the law,” the Brotherhood said.
“It’s incomprehensible to demand the rights of the martyrs by adding more
martyrs and victims.”
Adding to the popular
outrage over the verdict, the judge hearing the case, Sobhi Abdel Megeed, had
imposed a complete ban on publishing or broadcasting news from the last two
months of the soccer riot trial, including details of the charges, evidence or
judicial reasoning.
On Saturday, Judge
Megeed noted again that the court had asked the public prosecutor “to move
criminal cases against anybody who would violate the publishing ban, no matter
what their position is.”
Most in Cairo had
expected an acquittal. Speculation had centered on the wrath of the capital’s
Ultras if their attackers walked free. Instead, families of those killed in the
soccer riot who were in the courtroom erupted in jubilation when hearing the
news of the death penalty. Relatives held pictures of the victims in the air.
Some danced and chanted. A few fainted. And the Ultras celebrated for hours
outside their team’s headquarters in Cairo.