Unknown assailants have killed at least eight people protesting against Egypt’s ruling generals near the defence ministry in Cairo, officials say.
Witnesses described how the attackers set on them at dawn using rocks, clubs, firebombs and firing shotguns.
Up to 100 people were also reportedly injured and are being treated at a field clinic in the Abbasiya district.
Many of the protesters are supporters of a Salafist preacher barred from standing in the presidential election.
Hazem Abu Ismail was disqualified because his mother had dual Egyptian-US nationality, violating rules laid out in a constitutional declaration approved after an uprising forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down.
Mr Abu Ismail complained that he was the victim of a “plot” by the military authorities, but the election commission said it had found no evidence.
Campaign suspended
The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo says there is a strong suspicion that the men who attacked Mr Abu Ismail’s supporters in Abbasiya were hired by the government to break up their sit-in, which began on Saturday.
The assailants have now set up checkpoints to stop more protesters arriving at the scene, our correspondent adds.
The attack on demonstrators outside the Egyptian defence ministry follows what has become a familiar pattern in recent months.The attackers were unidentified thugs in plain clothes. Egyptians will strongly suspect they were, at the very least, encouraged by some section of the government.
The attack is most unlikely to deter the protesters. More likely, the demonstrators will summon reinforcements, with the danger of further clashes in coming days.
The first round of the presidential election is just three weeks away. Despite the violence, and the disqualification of several leading candidates, at the moment the vote does not appear to be under threat.
Soldiers and police deployed in the area reportedly did not intervene to stop the clashes, nor did they when one person was killed in a similar attack early on Sunday.
The two leading Islamist candidates for the presidency – Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an independent, and Mohammed Mursi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party – have reportedly suspended their campaigns in protest at the way the authorities handled the demonstration on Wednesday.
Opposition to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) has built up steadily since it assumed Mr Mubarak’s presidential powers in February 2011.
The council has been accused of stifling dissent by killing protesters, detaining critics and seeking to undermine the youth and civil society groups which led the uprising.
The generals have promised to hand over power to a civilian administration by the end of June, after a presidential election that they say will be free and fair.
The election’s first round is scheduled for 23 and 24 May, with a run-off vote for the top two candidates expected on 16 and 17 June.
The race seems to have narrowed to a contest between Mr Aboul Fotouh, Mr Mursi, and the former head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa
Source: BBC
