Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
An injured protester received help from fellow protesters in Cairo on Sunday.
CAIRO — Clashes between security forces and protesters continued for a fourth day on Monday in the center of the capital, a day after a new battle broke out between Egypt’s state-run and independent media over whom to blame for the violence
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Ahmed Ali/Associated Press
An Egyptian military solider gestured during clashes with protesters. More Photos »
Egyptian authorities said Monday that three more demonstrators died overnight, apparently killed when troops charged Tahrir Square before dawn. The deaths brought t0 13 the number of fatalities in the latest confrontation. Protesters put rings of bricks around bloodstains on the pavement where they said victims had fallen.
What is at stake in the propaganda war is public support ahead of the looming contest between an elected Parliament and the ruling military council over who will control the transitional government and oversee the drafting of a new constitution.
Human rights activists called the government’s depiction of the protesters as hooligans an official campaign of distortion intended to cover up the military’s violence and bolster its image.
Election monitors also said the violence and confusion were casting a shadow over continuing parliamentary elections — the first since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
The clashes began Friday morning when military police officers used clubs and electric prods to clear out a small sit-in left over from last month’s protests against military rule; in response, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets.
After two days of a crackdown that left hundreds wounded, a newly elected member of Parliament badly beaten and 10 civilians dead — most from gunshot wounds — Egyptian state television presented news on Sunday of a forensic report purporting to show that the bullets that caused the deaths were fired at close range. It was evidence, the presenters suggested, that the demonstrators who died had been killed by infiltrators in their ranks, not the security forces.
State television also interviewed people who said that they were protesters who had been paid by liberal groups to attack the military, echoing propaganda from the last days of the Mubarak government.
Later, after deprecating the protesters, state television reported that the top military officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, had paid a condolence call to their wounded.
The new independent papers and satellite channels that have sprung up since Mr. Mubarak’s exit appeared to be covering a different country. They vented outrage at theextensive video footage of military abuses that emerged over the weekend: military police officers severely beating civilians, soldiers firing handguns toward crowds (though it was unclear if the ammunition was live) and others ripping the clothes and head scarves off prone women as they pummeled them.
“Liars,” declared a front-page headline in the liberal newspaper Tahrir over a photograph of a soldier with his foot raised over the abdomen of a shirtless woman surrounded by troops in riot gear.
Youssef el-Husseiny, a morning newscaster on the independent cable channel ONTV, appeared Sunday shorn of his mustache; mustaches are traditional symbols of manhood here, and he said he had shaved it in shame.
“How can we be men, if this is done to our girls?” he said. “If there is a man with a mustache out there, he should shave it.”
Independent journalists trying to film the military violence complained of harassment. An independent satellite channel broadcasting live images of the clashes was removed from the air twice in recent days, once after it focused on a scene of soldiers beating a woman. Soldiers have also taken or smashed cameras. And on Saturday they raided an apartment overlooking Tahrir Square that has become a well-known hangout for journalists and activists filming or watching the events below, occupants said.
Even some broadcasters from state television and radio expressed anger at state news coverage of the violence, using the Internet to urge listeners to call their shows to counter what they called a “campaign of distortions.” At least three radio announcers have been banned from the airwaves for criticizing the military council or its media management, said Ahmed Montaser, one of the state-radio dissidents.
“All the young radio broadcasters don’t approve the policies of the senior officials, putting down a red line that they tell us we can’t cross,” he said.
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