Policeman killed as thousands of Morsi supporters march across Egypt

PanARMENIAN.Net - Thousands of supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi protested across Egypt on Friday, October 19 shouting slogans against army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted him on July 3, according to Reuters.

One person was wounded by gunfire when taking part in a pro-Morsi march of a few thousand in Fayoum, south of Cairo, state news agency MENA reported. Four were injured in clashes between Morsi supporters and residents in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig, state TV reported.

Hundreds of pro-Morsi Islamists took to the streets in the coastal city of Alexandria and in Buhayra province, witnesses and security sources said.

Friday's protests were mostly peaceful. On October 6, dozens of supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood were killed in protests in one of the bloodiest days since the military deposed him.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who survived an assassination attempt in September, ordered police to confront decisively any attempt to break the law, MENA reported.

On August 14, Egyptian security forces broke up two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo and killed hundreds of civilians.

The government then declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew. Thousands of Brotherhood members, including Morsi, have been arrested.

The pro-Morsi coalition that called for Friday's protests said in a statement released on the website of the Brotherhood's political wing that it would be open to the idea of having mediators work toward solving Egypt's political crisis.

Previous statements from the coalition had called the army-backed government illegitimate and insisted on Morsi's return to the presidency.

Proposals by the coalition to resolve the crisis must await the naming of mediators, the statement quoted Mohamed Ali Bishr, Brotherhood leader and a minister under Morsi, as saying.

Gunmen killed a policeman on Friday on a street in the city of El-Arish in north Sinai, security and medical sources said.

Egypt is fighting an Islamist insurgency in the largely lawless Sinai Peninsula, adjoining the Palestinian Gaza strip and Israel. Sinai-based militants have intensified their attacks on military and police since Morsi's ouster, which followed mass protests against his rule.