Memorial to Egyptian protesters damaged in Cairo
Source: AP-Excite
By SARAH EL DEEB
CAIRO (AP) - Unknown assailants damaged early Tuesday the foundation in Cairo's famed Tahrir square for a future memorial dedicated to protesters killed in Egypt's revolutionary turmoil of the past 2 1/2 years.
The attackers, mostly men in their early 20s, used rocks to chip away at the large foundation stone and sprayed it with red graffiti denouncing ousted President Mohammed Morsi and also Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the military chief who removed him in July after days of mass protests demanding that the Islamist leader step down.
The attack underscored the deep scars left by the political turmoil in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak's ouster in 2011, with revolutionary groups feeling betrayed by successive governments whose main failures, in their view, was the inability to dismantle the Mubarak regime and ensure retribution for the hundreds of protesters killed at the hands of police and soldiers since 2011.
Some of those who participated in that revolt and the mass anti-Morsi protests in June feel the memorial does not honor the dead as much as it tries to paper over the continuing deep disputes over Egypt's future. They say the military-backed interim government, which was brought to power after the July coup that ousted Morrsi is seeking to impose its control over what they see as an intrinsically anti-authoritarian space.
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People gather around the foundation for the future memorial to Egyptian protesters killed in the country's uprising and more than two-and-a-half years of turmoil after it was damaged in Cairo's famed Tahrir Square, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013. Unknown assailants attacked, chipped away and sprayed graffiti on the huge stone early on Tuesday, just hours after it was inaugurated by the country's interim prime minister. (AP Photo/Sarah El Deeb)