CAIRO: Twenty-one groups and coalitions launched Monday a campaign to expose what they called “lies” by the ruling military council about the deadly crackdown on protesters on Dec. 16 and the consequent clashes.
“Askar Kazeboon” (Lying Military) Campaign released a video to coincide with a press conference by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) held Monday. The video showed footage of the crackdown on protesters and attacks by the military juxtaposed with Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzoury’s statements to the contrary.
"The brutal attacks were not confined to Tahrir Square and other revolutionary squares in Egypt. The SCAF went beyond that to spread lies, try to distort the facts and depict the unarmed protesters as thugs and vandals," the campaign said in a statement.
At least 12 were killed and over 500 injured in the ongoing clashes, whose latest victims were reported Monday morning during clashes with central security forces.
The campaign targets SCAF and its false propaganda about the crackdown on the Cabinet sit-in on Dec. 16.
It aims to gather photos and videos as well as testimonials by eyewitnesses to prove that SCAF’s claims are all lies, according to the campaign’s official facebook page.
"The Cabinet sit-in which the military violently dispersed was based on a legitimate revolutionary demand to form a national salvation government, other than the one formed by Kamal El-Ganzoury, which can lead the transitional period which SCAF failed to do," the statement said.
The campaign statement claimed that SCAF ordered army personnel to use excessive force to clear the peaceful sit-in and that protesters did not use violence at any point.
The army forces attacked protesters with rocks, Molotov cocktails and live bullets from the roofs of the Cabinet and parliament buildings, said the statement.
"They burned the buildings to create a pretext to kill and arrest protesters by framing them," said Sally Toma, member of the Revolution Youth Coalition participating in the campaign.
She added that the armed forces intentionally burnt government buildings to scare Egyptians and blamed it on protesters.
The statement accused the SCAF of failing to protect state institutions in its capacity as the leader of the country during the transitional period.
"No single fire truck arrived to extinguish the building that caught fire which proves that SCAF intended to burn it," the statement said.
The Egyptian Scientific Complex, an antique building housing thousands of historical manuscripts, was burnt Saturday.
According to state-run Al-Ahram newspaper, Zein Abdel Hady, president of Egypt’s National Library, announced that the original copy of the "Le Description de L’Egypt" that was kept inside was burnt to ashes.
Abdel Hady said that volunteers managed to save about 30,000 of 196,000 rare manuscripts.
"The country is being exposed to a series of repetitive and systematic massacres at the hands of brutal forces that kill children, women and the elderly, throwing corpses in the garbage or the Nile, kidnapping citizens to brutally torture them, violating the sanctity of young and old women, storming mosques, churches and homes, attacking field hospitals, using public hospitals as a trap to arrest injured protesters while bleeding, hunting media, and stealing cameras and cell phones to cover up their crimes," the statement said.
They are using our funds and the taxes we pay to buy new weapons and tools to use in the killing and the torture, the statement added.
Toma said that SCAF is trying to get rid of all revolutionary youth, starting with the attack on the April 6 Youth Movement in Al-Abbasya last July. The generals are saying that these groups are paying street children to spread chaos and throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at army forces.
"El-Ganzoury wondered in his statement if there is a single revolutionary among the protesters," she said. "I tell him yes, if a kid’s brother was killed in protests or he is a street child, he will become a rebel."
The SCAF, Toma said, has claimed after each violent clash with protesters that there was a third party conspiring against Egypt.
"They should identify this party if they know it or else they are of no use," she said.
The main coalitions participating in the campaign are the Revolution Youth Coalition, the National Front for Justice and Democracy, Youth for Justice and Freedom Movement, Maspero Youth Coalition, and the Popular Socialist Coalition Party among others.
