Egypt unable to deter people from protesting: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hazem Salem, Egyptian activist in Cairo, to discuss the recent clashes between Egyptian security forces and anti-government protesters after Eid al-Fitr prayers.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: It is the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and as we have just mentioned, this is of course a day when Muslims celebrate, however blood on the streets of Egypt. What do you make of it?

Salem: The fact is the government has been trying to give the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood is finished and many of them are arrested and that the structure of the Brotherhood is finished and the ideology of the Brotherhood is finished. And when it was surprised by tens of thousands of Brotherhood members and other revolutionaries doing the demonstrations after the Eid prayer, it used excessive violence especially in Talbiyah in Giza.

The fact is the government thought that the anticipated anti-terrorism law would be deterring the people and terrorizing the people from demonstrating or expressing their unhappiness and their resentment of the current regime but this did not happen and the high number of people injured and killed notes that the demonstrations were really huge and the security used excessive violence and lethal way of dispersing the demonstrators.

The fact is it is another wave of revolutionary movement, and the idea of pushing the Brotherhood to violence did not work, they continued to demonstrate peacefully with their allies and with the young revolutionaries and they are making strong scores against the dictatorship regime.

Press TV: When you look at Egypt right now, it is also a victim of a lot of upheavals specifically within the Sinai region. Wouldn’t the Egyptian government try to bridge differences amongst different Egyptian factions as a form of restoring stability instead of its heavy-handed crackdown?

Salem: The fact of this regime is that it is not bridging anything with anybody. It is not even making bridges with its own allies who have supported this regime to come to power through the coup in June 30, 2013. There is a real fact that the government wants more and more violence in order to justify its excessive use of violence and in order to say to the western allies of this government, ‘we are fighting terrorism, give us more weapons, give us more Apache planes and we will crackdown on anybody who does anything.’

And the situation in Sinai is being a massive punishment for all the population of Sinai in order to secure the neighboring Israel. And the fact is the campaign in Sinai is basically as part of Israeli security not for suppressing terrorism in Egypt. It is using state terrorism against the people of Sinai.

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