An Aug. 23 protest mobilization called by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, dubbed a "Friday of Martyrs," was portrayed as a failure in the Western press (NYT [4]), the military flooding the streets with armored vehicles, erecting barbed-wire barricades at major intersections—and taking the extraordinary move of ordering prominent mosques closed. But Egypt's Ahram Online [5] reports that there were nonetheless street clashes in several cities—especially in the Nile Delta region north of Cairo. One protester was killed, and 25 injured, at Tanta, in the Delta's Gharbiya governorate. At Mansoura, in neighboring Daqahliya governorate, police used tear-gas as protesters were attackjed by hundreds of residents. Similar clashes were reported at Anshas Al-Raml village in the Delta's Sharqiya governorate, as supporters and opponents of Morsi hurled stones at each other.
Egypt's ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak [6] was transferred from prison to "house arrest" at a military hospital one day earlier, after a judge found that his imprisonment had exceeded the maximum pre-verdict detention. On Aug. 19, Mubarak was acquitted of embezzlement charges, although he still faces trial on other corruption charges, and for the killings of protesters. He was placed under "house arrest" instead of being freed under interim prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi's emergency powers. (AFP [7], Aug. 23; Anadolu Agency [8], Aug. 19)
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