Protesters torch Rabea monument

Dozens of students marched to the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Cairo’s eastern neighborhood of Nasr City Wednesday evening and set fire to scaffolding around a monument erected by security forces. The students were reported to be from an Islamist coalition known as “Students Against the Coup.”

The group is reported to have marched on Rabea al-Adaweya from the nearby Al-Azhar University dormitories. They held up the four-fingered “Rabea” salute along with posters of imprisoned Islamists and ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Videos circulating on social networking sites showed protesters chanting slogans against military rule and against presidential candidate Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Morsi promoted Sisi to head the Armed Forces during a reshuffle in 2012, but moved to topple the Islamist president on July 3, 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

The protesters appear to have set fire to wooden scaffolding around the marble monument that authorities had built at Rabea after a pro-Morsi encampment had been forcibly cleared on August 14, 2013. The monument was meant to symbolize two hands, representing the police and military, surrounding a white globe symbolizing the people.

From late June to August 14, Rabea al-Adaweya had been the site of a protest camp supporting Morsi and his then-ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

Riot police and military personnel have been deployed in large numbers around this mosque since the dispersal, which led to the deaths of several hundred Islamist protesters.

Morsi supporters, members of the outlawed Brotherhood and their allies in the “Anti-Coup Alliance” have repeatedly sought to march on Rabea but have always been pushed back, and often arrested, by security forces deployed around the mosque and its environs.

However, a large number of riot police trucks and armored personnel carriers were moved away from the area over the past week.

Speaking by telephone on the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel, one of the protest organizers said that there were no security forces present there upon their arrival.

“Thank God, we came and concluded our protest stand before they could be deployed,” the organizer said.

Some media reports mention that today’s protest was sparked by the death of student Mohamed Ayman, a pro-Morsi activist from Ain Shams University. Ayman reportedly died of shotgun wounds he had suffered while partaking in a protest march on Tuesday. 

Other reports mention that Wednesday’s protest was a result of death sentences recently issued against some Islamist students.