By Aimen Eljali.
Tripoli, 16 August 2013:
There was another demonstration in Tripoli today against the killings in Cairo on Wednesday but . . .[restrict]turnout was lower than expected.
Between 150 and 200 protestors gathered in the capital’s Algeria Square after Asr prayers late this afternoon, much the same number as outside the Egyptian embassy yesterday. However, yesterday protestors predicted that numbers would be much greater today because people were being informed about the demonstration.
Chanting “Mursi is President”, demonstrators waved placards in favour of the ousted Egyptian leader and against the Egyptian army and police, and others they accuse of supporting them.
Not all were the demonstrators were supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Brotherhood-linked Justice & Construction Party. “I’m not a member of the Brotherhood”, one protestor told the Libya Herald, “but I’m against the way the police and army acted in Cairo. I’m appalled by the violence”.
There was anger too against the Libyan government and Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. A number of protestors accused him of wanting to secularise Libya and of encouraging immorality and violence in the country. They said that what happened in Egypt would happen in Libya too and that the government planned to collaborate with NATO to kill Brotherhood members in Libya.
Meanwhile the leader of the Muslim Britherhood-linked Justice and Construction Party, Mohamed Sawan has attacked the government for its silence over Wednesday’s killings.
Sawan said he understood the government’s decision not to take a position on the overthrow of Morsi on 3 July but its present silence over Wednesday’s slaughter was deplorable, all the more so given that it was a sisterly neighbor and a partner in the Arab Spring.
“We demand the interim government to take a clear position and outright massacres committed against the Egyptian people”, he said, noting that other countries had condemned the killings. [/restrict]
