Egypt Police Disperse Pro-Morsi Friday Protests

Egyptian security forces in several provinces used teargas and birdshot to disperse Friday protests by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and arrest a number of demonstrators, eyewitnesses and security sources have said.



According to eyewitnesses and medical sources, security forces fired teargas and birdshot on a pro-Morsi rally in the central Fayoum province, leaving two suffering birdshot wounds.



A number of protesters were arrested and others injured when security forces used teargas to break up a pro-Morsi march in Upper Egypt's Minya province, security sources said.



Anti-riot police also broke up similar protests in Beni Sueif and Alexandria.



A statement by the Alexandria security directorate said that at least 25 protesters had been arrested in possession of "subversive flyers, fireworks, Molotov cocktails and blunt instruments."



Clashes were also reported in the Giza province, west of Cairo, between security forces and Morsi supporters, which left an undetermined number of the latter injured, eyewitnesses said.



Friday's rallies come as part of weeklong demonstrations called by the pro-Morsi National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy to protest presidential poll results giving former army chief Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi a whopping 96.7 percent of the vote.



Protesters flashed the four-finger Rabaa salute, which commemorates the killing of hundreds of Morsi supporters in the violent dispersal of two protest camps in Cairo and Giza last August.



Similar rallies and human chains were staged in the canal cities of Ismailia, Suez and Port Said and in the Nile Delta provinces of Damietta and Sharqiya.



In capital Cairo, protesters took to the streets of the eastern 5th Settlement, Nasr City and Ain Shams districts, raising Morsi posters and waving Egyptian flags.



They also staged a march in the northern Shubra al-Kheima neighborhood, during which they shouted slogans in support of Morsi – ousted and jailed by the army last summer after one year in office – and denounced "military rule."



In the southern Helwan district, meanwhile, two marches were staged in which participants carried banners reading: "Morsi is the legitimate president."



Results provided by 13,893 polling stations across Egypt showed al-Sisi winning some 23.5 million votes, while his competitor, leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, won only 791,153, or 3.3 percent of the total, according to a tally by Anadolu Agency.



The pro-democracy bloc has cast doubts on the results, however, saying that only some 10 percent of Egypt's registered voters had bothered to cast ballots for either candidate.



The vote, which wrapped up Wednesday, comes as part of an army-imposed roadmap for Egypt's transition.



Al-Sisi led the army to oust Morsi – Egypt's first freely elected president – following mass protests last July against the Islamist leader.



While critics describe Morsi's ouster as a "military coup," supporters call it an "army-backed revolution."



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