Six persons were killed and 190 injured in violence across Egypt on Friday, as thousands of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi took to the streets to protest against the military backed government.
Five people, including at least two police officers, were killed in Cairo, and a civilian died in the coastal city of Port Said, the Health Ministry said.
In Cairo’s upscale neighbourhood of Mohandiseen, protesters burnt tyres in the streets to separate themselves from troops and police forces deployed in the area, according to footage on state television.
Friday’s protests were bigger than last week’s disappointing turnout for Islamist protests.
However, instead of holding one or two big protest camps as they had in recent months, the Islamist demonstrators held scattered small-scale protests — each included few hundred people — across the country.
The new tactic comes as the Government continued an arrest campaign against their top and middle-ranking members, who used to organise the protests.
Two top officials of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood were arrested on Thursday. They were among the few prominent leaders of the Islamist group to remain at large after authorities dispersed pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo two weeks ago, killing hundreds.
Morsi was deposed by military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi on July 3, after millions took to the streets calling for Egypt’s first democratically elected president to go.
Islamists accuse the military of staging a coup aimed to restore the regime of Hosny Mubarak, ousted after Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
Liberal and leftist forces, who are serving in an interim government, said that Morsi ruled in an authoritarian manner and was ineffective in addressing a faltering economy and a security vacuum.