© Ahmed Almasry
Despite photos and video footage that show military personnel using violence against protesters, a member of Egypt's military council addressed the media on Monday, affirming that the armed forces have exercised self-restraint in the weekend's clashes and accused forces - which he failed to name - of plotting to instigate "chaos," thwart the state and drive wedges between the military and the people.
In a televised news conference, General Adel Emara, member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), offered the generals' version of the violence that erupted on Friday in downtown Cairo, which left at least 11 killed and more than 500 injured.
He denied reports of the military using "excessive force" against protesters, accusing the media of falsifying reports.
"The armed forces does not use violence systematically," said Emara. "We exercise a level of self-restraint that others envy. We do not do that out of weakness but out of concern for national interests."
The general said that violence erupted on Friday when demonstrators who had been holding a sit-in in outside the cabinet's headquarters for the last three weeks attacked a military officer. Military personnel guarding the cabinet's building came to the officer's rescue, but they were subjected to "deliberate humiliation and provocation," continued Emara, who affirmed later that the armed forces had no intention of dispersing the protest.
