Egypt's interim government authorized police to disperse monthlong sit-ins supporting the country's ousted president, escalating the prospect of violent confrontation between two camps that have refused to cede ground in the month since Mohammed Morsi's ouster.
The long-standing pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo's Raba'a Al Adiwiya and Nahda squares were unacceptable and "posed a threat to Egyptian national security" due to protesters' alleged weapons possession, Egypt's cabinet of ministers said in a statement Wednesday. It asked the interior ministry to take "all necessary measures to address these risks and put an end to them," within legal limits.
Adding to tensions, Egypt's prosecutors said Wednesday that they had referred three top Muslim Brotherhood leaders—including General Guide Mohammed Badie—to trial on charges of killing protesters during July skirmishes due to protesters' alleged weapons possession. The leaders have denied any connection to the killings.
The cabinet's request, which comes after police crackdowns on protesters in July left more than 120 Brotherhood supporters dead, set off worries of bloodier confrontations to come. Over the past month, videos circulating on social-networking cites have shown pro-Morsi protesters in both squares, armed with weapons, including handguns and wooden truncheons. They weren't possible to verify.
Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood accused the government of inviting bloodshed by cracking down on protests. Brotherhood supporters began their sit-in after the military ousted and arrested Mr. Morsi following mass popular protests, vowing to remain until the reinstatement of the man they called the country's legitimate president.
"This is the same line from the people of the coup who are always pushing in one direction toward violence.…It seems that the cabinet or the coup leaders are insisting on bloodshed in Egypt," said a Brotherhood leader who spoke by phone from Raba'a Al Adiwiya Square. He denied there were weapons in the square.
"We will continue our peaceful protests and peaceful demonstrations," said the Brotherhood leader. "We won't give up our values and our beliefs, and we won't be dragged into violence."
As of Wednesday evening, people in the square—the main pro-Morsi sit-in, where families have set up a tent city—said they had seen no obvious police or military movements.
The interior ministry has a recent history of deadly antagonism against their Islamist rivals. On Saturday, ministry forces gunned down more than 70 pro-Morsi protesters near the Raba'a Al Adiwiya tent city. Battles between police and protesters earlier in July in front of the Republican Guard club, where Mr. Morsi was thought to be detained, ended in the deaths of more than 50 people.
These earlier incidents played out on the fringes of Brotherhood sit-ins. Wednesday's statement named both squares, where thousands of protesters, including women and children, have been camped out for a month.
"We're talking about numbers that we've never seen before," said Heba Morayef, an Egypt researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, adding that the interior ministry has a record of using excessive force. "They don't know what proportionality means."
New York-based Amnesty International called the order "a recipe for further bloodshed."
The statement from the cabinet appeared to answer calls last week for a crackdown. On July 24, Gen. Abdel Fattah al Sisi, Egypt's minister of defense and the head of its armed forces, called on Egyptians to protest to give the army a mandate to deal with terrorism—terminology widely thought to refer to the sit-ins.
The cabinet's statement, which was read on state television, cited what it said were widespread concerns among some Egyptians that the sit-ins are dangerous and unlawful.
"The statement is expected," said Ashraf Swelam, who is a former adviser to presidential candidate Amr Moussa and is close to the secular-leaning leadership that assumed power after Mr. Morsi's removal. "What I am getting so far is that it's not going to be a storming of the sit-in, but it will start with gradual steps to try to contain the sit-in, try to grab as many people as possible by their own choice."
Also on Wednesday, Egypt's government allowed members of an African Union mission to meet with Mr. Morsi, just days after he met with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The head of the AU delegation, former Mali President Alpha Oumar Konare, offered no clues on Morsi's location but told reporters that he had a "very frank meeting" with him, according to the Associated Press. He gave no details of the discussions.
In the weeks since Mr. Morsi's July 3 removal, armed Morsi-backers have terrorized several Cairo neighborhoods, according to anti-Morsi activists. Dozens of people were killed by rampaging mobs of Morsi backers, these people have alleged, in accounts that are matched by online videos and witness accounts.
An uptick in violence against police and military personnel in the Sinai Peninsula, a heartland of jihadi sympathizers, has elevated passions against Morsi supporters.
Undated photos, purportedly from Raba'a Al Adiwiya, have meanwhile scandalized Egyptians by depicting parades of children dressed in white funeral cloaks—an expression of the desire for martyrdom. Neither those photos, nor the videos of armed Brotherhood supporters, were possible to verify. But their repeated exposure on television and in newspapers has inflamed public opinion and added to the public impression that the Brothers are girding for a showdown.
