A Freedom and Justice Party spokesperson in Alexandria has accused protesters of raiding the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. Protesters in turn accused the Brotherhood of ransacking their own offices.
A march was held in Alexandria against President Mohamed Morsy’s constitutional declaration on Tuesday night. The Brotherhood also held a march in support of the declaration.
Mohamed Soudan, a spokesperson for the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in Alexandria who was taking part in the Brotherhood march said, “we heard that people were attacking the [Brotherhood] headquarters so around 150 of us went to protect the building in Smouha. About a thousand people were there and we could do nothing to stop them. We called the police but nobody turned up.”
Soudan reported that people entered the office and threw all the furniture onto the street and then set fire to it. He added, “they had big knives, sticks and rocks.”
Ahmed Wahba, who was outside the Brotherhood headquarters, denied that any of his fellow protesters had any part in attacking the office. He said, “none of us would have been able to get in because both entrances of the building were closed.” Wahba claimed, “there were bearded men throwing things out of the office.” He thought they were Brotherhood members “because the items they were throwing out were of little value.”
Soudan denied that the Brotherhood orchestrated the attack. “We ordered our people to stay away, not to go inside.” He added, “we have filed a police report and why would we do that if we had committed the crime ourselves?”
Both sides said they had agreed that the protests would avoid each other to prevent clashes.
The Brotherhood organised three marches in Alexandria for Wednesday night. A statement released by them said Wednesday’s march was to “declare our full support for the president’s decisions.”
On Friday the main FJP political headquarters in Alexandria were burned down.
