Soccer Riot

CAIRO -- Egyptian protesters set fire to a police social club and attempted to block the Suez Canal  on Saturday after a court upheld death sentences for 21 soccer fans and acquitted seven police officers accused in a deadly stadium riot last year. Demonstrations in Port Said and Cairo marked the latest escalation in months of unrest and civil disobedience aimed at bringing down President Mohamed Morsi's embattled Islamist-led government. The rage came amid a widening security vacuum spurred by a nationwide police strike.

CAIRO -- Egyptian protesters set fire to a police social club and attempted to block the Suez Canal  on Saturday after a court upheld death sentences for 21 soccer fans and acquitted seven police officers accused in a deadly stadium riot last year. Demonstrations in Port Said and Cairo marked the latest escalation in months of unrest and civil disobedience aimed at bringing down President Mohamed Morsi's embattled Islamist-led government. The rage came amid a widening security vacuum spurred by a nationwide police strike.

Five prisoners in a high security jail died in riots that broke out after a dispute over a soccer match between inmates, a police spokeswoman said Friday.

CAIRO - Deadly clashes and an attempted jailbreak erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer fans were sentenced to death for killing rivals in a riot last year that underlined the nation's wider unrest and deepening political schisms. At least 30 people were reported killed Saturday, including two police officers. Buildings burned and mobs ran through the streets hoisting the wounded and chanting against the government. Concern intensified that protesters would take up weapons smuggled in from Libya and Sudan.

CAIRO -- Deadly clashes erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer hooligans were sentenced to death for killing rival fans in a riot last year that became a dangerous subplot to the nation's wider unrest and political schisms. Gunshots and tear gas volleys rang out between security forces and supporters of the Masry soccer club after the verdicts were read. Relatives of the accused attempted to storm the jail where soccer fans and former police officials charged in the 2012 stadium melee are imprisoned.

Bravo to Alfie Kohn! How pleasant to read an article (Editorial Pages, June 5),"Soccer Riot: Competition Is the Villain," on the underlying illness behind sports. We are inundated with competition but rarely has it been so blatantly expressed as a negative. The priorities for competition in this country as well as other competitive countries seem quite low in quality. As a single mother of a 6-year-old boy, I am constantly questioned about his athletic future. For years I have been against the intense sports competition and what it does to the losers.

The coffins came down the hill in an intermittent procession Thursday as families focused their rage on police and military forces for not preventing a soccer riot that left 74 people dead and heightened the lawlessness threatening Egypt's unfinished revolution. Mothers wept and fathers railed as coffins were carried one by one from the morgue in Cairo. Sisters fainted and brothers, some with their own wounds bandaged, turned their heads as names were called and bodies, many wrapped in sheets, were collected and driven over a rutted road toward cemeteries across the city.

The prosecutor in the Heysel soccer riots trial urged today that two Belgian state police officials be convicted for badly organizing security at the 1985 European Champions' Cup match, when 39 people died in the disaster. Prosecutor Pierre Erauw was more lenient with two city officials and two high-level European soccer officials, who were sued by relatives of the victims and fans injured in Europe's worst-ever soccer riot. He said they should not be punished.

Police and politicians in Russia looked to place blame for riots that broke out during a broadcast of a World Cup match, leaving two dead, scores injured, and cars and shop windows damaged throughout much of Moscow's center. Thousands of young men, many of them drunk, rioted Sunday during Russia's 1-0 loss to Japan. Russian media said one of the victims was a police officer who died from knife wounds.

Although Sunday's disturbance was Huntington Park's sixth soccer riot since 1994, police and businessmen expressed relief Monday that damage to the city's shopping district and the number of arrests were not as high as in earlier incidents. Tom Weselis of the Huntington Park police force gave no dollar estimate of the damage, but said it was fairly minimal, most visibly broken windows at three stores.

CAIRO -- Deadly clashes erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer hooligans were sentenced to death for killing rival fans in a riot last year that became a dangerous subplot to the nation's wider unrest and political schisms. Gunshots and tear gas volleys rang out between security forces and supporters of the Masry soccer club after the verdicts were read. Relatives of the accused attempted to storm the jail where soccer fans and former police officials charged in the 2012 stadium melee are imprisoned.

  Young men wearing surgical masks and hurling stones rushed police barricades Friday against the pop-pop of tear gas rounds that spread white smoke like a gauze over the street as other protesters retreated with the injured draped in their arms. A new band of men waving flags and splotching their faces with yeast to cut the sting of gas made their run toward the barricades and black-clad riot police in front of the Interior Ministry. Surge and retreat has become a dangerous dance of revolt, full of fury but unable, so far, to break the grip of the nation's military rulers.

The coffins came down the hill in an intermittent procession Thursday as families focused their rage on police and military forces for not preventing a soccer riot that left 74 people dead and heightened the lawlessness threatening Egypt's unfinished revolution. Mothers wept and fathers railed as coffins were carried one by one from the morgue in Cairo. Sisters fainted and brothers, some with their own wounds bandaged, turned their heads as names were called and bodies, many wrapped in sheets, were collected and driven over a rutted road toward cemeteries across the city.

An Egyptian soccer match between two longtime rivals descended into a violent echo of the bloodiest days of last year's revolution as hooligans supporting the winning team stormed the field, attacking opposing players and fans in clashes that reportedly killed at least 73 people. The fighting on the pitch quickly took on broader political overtones. The Muslim Brotherhood, which controls nearly half of the new parliament, laid blame for the bloodshed on thugs connected to toppled President Hosni Mubarak who are plotting to destabilize the country.

Soccer riot: An article Nov. 12 in Section A about a clash among soccer fans in Italy said the Juventus club was based in Milan. The club is in the city of Turin.

If the disturbance had happened anywhere else, it might have been dismissed as just another instance of soccer hooliganism. But the rowdiness that followed North Korea's loss to Iran on Wednesday in a World Cup qualifying match in Pyongyang has raised questions about public order in what is reputed to be the world's most controlled city.

  Young men wearing surgical masks and hurling stones rushed police barricades Friday against the pop-pop of tear gas rounds that spread white smoke like a gauze over the street as other protesters retreated with the injured draped in their arms. A new band of men waving flags and splotching their faces with yeast to cut the sting of gas made their run toward the barricades and black-clad riot police in front of the Interior Ministry. Surge and retreat has become a dangerous dance of revolt, full of fury but unable, so far, to break the grip of the nation's military rulers.

Police and politicians in Russia looked to place blame for riots that broke out during a broadcast of a World Cup match, leaving two dead, scores injured, and cars and shop windows damaged throughout much of Moscow's center. Thousands of young men, many of them drunk, rioted Sunday during Russia's 1-0 loss to Japan. Russian media said one of the victims was a police officer who died from knife wounds.

Soccer fans went on a rampage in the heart of Moscow on Sunday, torching cars, breaking windows and battling police while watching Russia lose a World Cup soccer match to Japan on an outdoor TV screen just outside the Kremlin. One person was fatally stabbed and at least two dozen were injured. The unrest was the worst in the Russian capital since an uprising in parliament in 1993. Sunday's riot broke out during the second half of the game, when Japan scored the contest's only goal.