Coptic Christian protesters were demonstrating peacefully on October 9th when some were plowed down by Egyptian army vehicles that headed for the crowd. The protests started as a reaction to the government not investigating the burning of a church in Marinab. As the protesters moved threw the town toward the television station, civilians began to throw stones at the protesters and the protesters threw stones back. Once at the television station armed vehicles entered the crowd running over protestors. News channels were reporting these events until they were stopped by military personnel. General Adel Emara claimed that the military was not intentionally running over protesters but in actuality were trying to avoid protesters because they were throwing stones at them. Many testimonies and the actual video footage of the incident do not go along with the military’s story. The testimonies and footage do not illustrate a violent crowd.
The use of police force would have been a different story if the crowd was armed and violent, but the crowd was in peaceful protest and was not a physical threat to the military. The military has the authority to arrest those who are committing violent acts or who assault a police officer. However, neither of these instances describes the event of October 9th. This is just another instance of how Egypt is trying to stop any type of resistance against its military run government whether it is peaceful or not. The military is infringing on its citizens (and the Coptic Christian’s in this article) right to life, security and freedom of assembly and association. It is an international human right that people are permitted to the freedom of assembly and association. Now this right may be taken away if the group displays violence but should not be infringed upon when it is a peaceful gathering.
If there is actual footage showing that the military used unnecessary violence against a peaceful protest, how can the military's story be the exact opposite?
http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContentP/1/25077/Egypt/Human-Rights-Watch-Report-Egypt-Don%E2%80%99t-Cover-Up-Mil.aspx
Military forces do not want to attain a bad reputation through civilian attacks, so they obviously try and bend the truth. If people knew that the transitional regime was doing things like that, more protests would start and they would be back to square one. I think right now in Egypt is a hard time for everyone, including the military. They want to keep order, and with everything going on there it can be difficult at times. I am not advocating running over citizens to maintain order, but right now is a very tumultuous time and the government may be doing what they think is necessary to keep people in line. While it is wrong what they did, I can sort of understand some motives.
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