World View: Millions Fill Egypt's Streets with Mostly Peaceful Protests

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Millions fill Egypt’s streets with mostly peaceful protests
• Pakistan terrorists continue Shia Hazara extermination plan
• Pakistan terrorists kill dozens in Peshawar
• Burma Buddhists protest Time’s portrayal of ‘Buddhist Terror’

Millions fill Egypt’s streets with mostly peaceful protests

Oceans of anti-government protesters fill Tahrir Square in Cairo (BBC)

In towns and cities across Egypt, millions of people filled thestreets in competing protests by against and for president MohamedMorsi, with hundreds of thousands of people in Cairo alone. Theprotests were almost entirely peaceful, but with isolated incidents ofviolence that killed two people in separate incidents in Cairosuburbs.

Anti-Morsi protesters complained Morsi had allowed the economy tocollapse, and that he had governed for the benefit of the MuslimBrotherhood, and not for all the people of Egypt. They claim to have22 million signatures on petitions demanding that he step down.

Pro-Morsi protesters responded that Morsi is the first legitimatelyelected president of Egypt, and that he should be allowed to finishhis 4-year term. Most pro-Morsi supporters also support a version ofSharia law that’s much stricter than the versions supported by theliberals and secularists.

This was the biggest protest in the history of Egypt. Everyone isbreathing a sign of relief that there was so little violence, but withmillions of people on the streets, there’s the feeling that Egypt islike a coiled spring, ready to snap. Officials are hoping that thingswill remain relatively peaceful until Ramadan begins on Monday, July8, at which time many people expect the demonstrations to peter out.Al-Ahram (Cairo) and BBC

Pakistan terrorists continue Shia Hazara extermination plan

The al-Qaeda linked Sunni Muslim terror group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ),have vowed that “Our mission [in Pakistan] is the abolition of thisimpure sect and people, the Shias and the Shia Hazaras, from everycity, every village, every nook and corner of Pakistan,” and on Sundaythey continued to pursue that mission. LeJ claimed responsibility fora suicide bomber attack in a Shia Hazara neighborhood of Quetta thatkilled at 28 people and wounded dozens more. This is just the latestin a series of gun and bomb attacks by LeJ on Hazara communities inand around Quetta in southwestern Pakistan that have killed hundredsof people this year alone. LeJ is an offshoot of the PakistaniTaliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP). Although sectarian violence ishardly new in Pakistan, Sunni vs Shia sectarian violence has sharplyincreased in recent months from Africa to India, as a result of theconflict in Syria, which itself is turning into a proxy war betweenSunnis and Shias. The News (Pakistan) and Reuters

Pakistan terrorists kill dozens in Peshawar

Also on Sunday, a remote control bomb killed at least 17 people in abusy marketplace in Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan, injuring dozensmore, resulting in almost 50 deaths between the two terrorist attacks.No one has yet claimed responsibility for the Peshawar attack, butit’s assumed to be the work of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP – thePakistan Taliban), who have been conducted many terrorist attacks inthe northwest and in Pakistan’s tribal region. Pakistan’s new primeminister, Nawaz Sharif, made a campaign promise to negotiate a peacewith TTP, but not surprisingly it seems that promise won’t befulfilled. On Sunday, TTP were apparently targeting a convoy of agovernment paramilitary force, but the convoy escaped the bomb and themarketplace bore the brunt. TTP has promised to stop killingcivilians with terrorist attacks, but apparently that promise won’t bekept either. Express Tribune (Pakistan) and Dawn (Pakistan)

Burma Buddhists protest Time’s portrayal of ‘Buddhist Terror’

Time Magazine July 1 cover portraying Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu as ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror’

More than 1,000 people, including about 100 Buddhist monks, rallied onSunday to support a decision by the Myanmar/Burma government to bansale or distribution of the July 1 edition of TIME magazine. Themagazine’s cover story was a reaction to April’s mob attack on Muslimsin Burma (Myanmar) by thousands of Buddhists, including many Buddhistmonks, led by Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, who calls himself the

The magazine’s cover has a photo of Wirathu as “The Face of BuddhistTerror.” Burma’s government has banned the magazine saying that itmight trigger new violence Sunday’s protesters called for legal actionagainst the magazine and its editorial team and carried placardssaying, “We support monk Wirathu who is just trying to protect ourreligion.” However, other Burmese claim that only a small minoritytook part in the Muslim genocide, and most Burmese oppose it.Kyodo and The Diplomat

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail