Experts suggest water hoses to end Brotherhood sit-ins

Morsi-supporters continue to protest in Cairo Cairo -  Akram Ali Security experts in Egypt have suggested ways to disperse the sit-ins by supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi which they say will cause minimal harm. The government has said it held off from breaking up the Islamist's protest camps in Nahda Square and Rabaa al-Adawiya in Cairo out of respect for the holy month of Ramadan, which ended on Wednesday night, and to give foreign mediators a chance to end the deadlock peacefully.
With the failure of the mediation, the country is bracing for an increasingly inevitable confrontation between the army-installed government and Morsi's loyalists demanding his reinstatement.
 Authorities have promised demonstrators a safe exit and said ending their protests would allow the Brotherhood to return to political life.
But more than 80 protesters were killed in clashes with police at the main sit-in outside Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque on June 27.
Security expert Hussein Refaat told Arab Today on Saturday that the Interior Ministry could surround Rabaa al-?Adawiya with armoured vehicles and then call on the protesters to peacefully leave the ?sit-in.?
Refaat added that if they refused, the security forces should prevent the entry of any ?new protesters, or those who had formerly left the sit-in, as well as cutting all services like ?water and electricity in order to pressure demonstrators to leave.?
A second expert, Fouad Allam said that fire engines could use water hoses against the protesters and that teargas could ?be deployed, with bullets only being used if there was an attack against the security forces.?
Meanwhile, security expert Magdy Bassiouny said security forces should be backed up by military ?forces if a curfew is imposed, and that tanks and armoured vehicles should be spread throughout the ?area to disperse the sit-in.?
Bassiouny told Arab Today that shooting protesters while attempting to break up the sit-ins would only ?increase loss of life.

Additional source: AFP