OK, here's one to file under "all too telling irony." Egyptian authorities have banned Yemeni rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman from entering the country for "security reasons." Karman was held at Cairo airport on arrival and sent back to Yemen. The first Arab woman to win the Nobel peace prize had voiced support for loyalists of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and protested his ouster by the military. Karman was due to make an appearance at a Cairo sit-in by Morsi supporters. The Anti-Coup Alliance said Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, also a Nobel laureate, "is to be held responsible for banning activists and Nobel Prize winners from entering Egypt." (AFP, Aug. 4)

At least 100 were killed and hundreds injured July 27 as Egyptian security forces attacked Muslim Brotherhood supporters holding a public sit-in at a square outisde Rabaa al-Adawia mosque in northwest Cairo, bringing the toll in repression since the fall of President Mohammed Morsi to over 200 dead. Five were also killed in Alexandria the previous day, and rival demonstrations were reported from cities and towns throughout the country. Army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has issued a call for the Brotherhood's opponents to take to the streets in mass demonstration of support for the military. But with Rabaa al-Adawia square occupied by Morsi supporters and Tahrir Square now held by Morsi opponents responding to al-Sisi's call, a relatively small group of protesters established a vigil in Giza's Sphinx Square, calling themselves the "Third Square" movement. Their banners and flyers call for Egyptians to reject both Morsi's "religious fascism" and  "the army's continued political role."

After being detained for a day or two by Panamanian authorities on a request from Interpol, retired US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief Robert Seldon Lady was released on July 19 and placed on a plane bound for the US. In 2009 an Italian court sentenced Lady in absentia to nine years in prison for the Feb. 17, 2003 kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian-born Muslim cleric and suspected terrorist also known as Abu Omar, on a street in Milan. Although 22 other US citizens were convicted in the kidnapping case, Italy has only been seeking Lady, who headed the CIA's Milan station; the others received lighter sentences that don't warrant extradition requests under Italian law.

Egyptian authorities on July 10 ordered the arrest of Mohammed Badie, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), as well as nine other leading Islamists, in an escalation of the crackdown against protesters of Egypt's current military-backed leadership. Badie is accused of inciting violence in Cairo on July 8 in which more than 50 people were killed. Reports of the violence conflict, as the Brotherhood reports that soldiers carried out a massacre of peaceful demonstrators, while police and military forces say they acted in self-defense. The issued warrants further highlight the military's zero-tolerance policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, who continue to hold daily mass protests demanding the reinstatement of ousted president Morsi. Many Egyptians had hoped that Wednesday's start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan would help to calm the ongoing turmoil, but the sunrise-to-sunset fasting may only diminish protest activity during daytime hours.

Egyptian blogger Ahmed Douma, who had been sentenced to six months in prison for insulting ousted president Mohammed Morsi, was released on July 6, according to state news agency MENA. The prosecution requested Douma's release in June, dropping the charges against him. Despite the release order, Douma remained in custody for another trial on a separate charge. Douma was charged along with 11 others with inciting violence during protests in March in which at least 160 people were injured. The Cairo Criminal Court acquitted all 12 defendants because the evidence against them was deemed void.

Some 40 supporters of Egypt's deposed president Mohamed Morsi were injured as soldiers opened fire on protesters outside a government office in El Arish, a town in the northern Sinai Peninsula July 6. (Euronews, July 6) That same day, a Coptic Christian priest, Mina Aboud Sharween, was shot dead while walking on a street in El Arish—apparently the first sectarian killing since the power transfer. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood had criticized Pope Tawadros, spiritual leader of Egypt's 8 million Copts, for giving his blessing to the removal of the president and attending the announcement by army chief Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, suspending the constitution. (The Guardian, July 6)

Numerous were killed in street-fighting in Egypt July 5, two days after the military deposed President Mohamed Morsi, with CNN putting the number at nearly 30. Several were slain as they protested in front of the Republican Guard headquarters, where Morsi is believed to be detained. AFP portrays the incident as a gunfight between the Republican Guards and armed Brotherhood militants. Dozens of Brotherhood leaders and their staff have been arrested, including the group's supreme executive, Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat el-Shater. After Morsi's removal, Egypt's Foreign Minister Kamel Amr (a holdover from the period of military rule before Morsi's election) called US Secretary of State John Kerry to insist that the ousting was not a military coup. But his overstatement revealed the obvious sensitivity of the topic (especially as concerns keeping US military aid going): "There is no role, no political role whatsoever, for the military... This is the total opposite of a military coup." (Huffington Post)

Egyptian authorities on July 4 shut down four Islamist-run television stations viewed as sympathetic to ousted President Mohamed Morsi. This crackdown occurred only a day after the Egyptian military removed Morsi from office and installed an interim government headed by High Constitutional Court judge Adly Mansour. The military also raided the offices of Al Jazeera's Egyptian news channel and detained at least five of its staff members, four of whom were later released. Another station run by the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from the air as it was showing pro-Morsi protesters chanting "down with military rule" following the announcement that Morsi had been removed from power.