Mursi backers call for marches to foil Egypt crackdown

1 of 4. A poster with a caricature depicting Egypt’s army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that reads ”Butcher worship”, is seen as Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi walk at Rabaa Adawiya Square, where they are camping, in Nasr City area, east of Cairo August 11, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

By Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO | Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:01pm EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian police are expected to start taking action early on Monday against supporters of ousted President Mohamed Mursi who are gathered in crowded protest camps in Cairo, security and government sources said, a move which could trigger more bloodshed.

The sites are the main flashpoints in the confrontation between the army, which toppled Mursi last month, and supporters who demand his reinstatement.

Western and Arab mediators and some senior Egyptian government officials have been trying to persuade the army to avoid using force against the protesters, who at times can number as much as tens of thousands.

“State security troops will be deployed around the sit-ins by dawn as a start of procedures that will eventually lead to a dispersal,” a senior security source said on Sunday, adding that the first step will be to surround the camps.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who toppled Mursi, has come under pressure from hardline military officers to move against the protesters, security sources say.

Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since the overthrow, including dozens of Mursi supporters shot dead by security forces in two incidents.

Any further bloodshed would almost certainly deepen Egypt’s political crisis and keep the government from dealing with vital issues such as the fragile economy.

Another security source said the decision to make a move on Monday, just after celebrations following the holy month of Ramadan, came after a meeting between the interior minister and his aides.

“The first step towards ending the sit-ins will start at dawn when protesters will be surrounded,” a government official said.

Mursi’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement on Sunday criticizing any plans by “coup makers” to interfere with their right to protest and calling on international rights groups to visit their camps to see how peaceful they were.

Egypt has been convulsed by political and economic turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ended 30 years of autocratic rule by the U.S.-backed Hosni Mubarak.

It is now more polarized than any time for many years.

There is deepening alarm in the West over the course taken by the country of 84 million people, a pivotal nation between the Middle East and North Africa and recipient of $ 1.5 billion a year in mainly military aid from the United States.

FORTRESS-LIKE CAMPS

Mursi’s supporters, mainly from the Brotherhood, have turned the camps into something resembling fortresses. Sandbags and piles of big rocks have been set up all over.

Guards with sticks wear motorcycle helmets in anticipation of a raid that would require security forces to crack down in a heavily congested area that includes children.

Egyptian authorities have warned the protesters to leave the camps or face the consequences. Some Mursi supporters are growing increasingly nervous, fearful that police could storm their gathering at any minute.

“They cut off the electricity,” said one protester by telephone. The government later issued a statement saying the blackout at the largest camp in northeast Cairo was unintentional.

Most Mursi supporters remain defiant, and spend their time at the camps reading the Koran and listening to Brotherhood leaders and clerics deliver lectures in the stifling heat.

Responding to the news that police were expected to storm the gatherings early Monday, protester Mustafa Al-Khateeb said: “We are staying and are psychologically prepared for anything and have secured the protests areas and their entrances and exists.”

Mursi took power as Egypt’s first democratically-elected president in June 2012. But concerns he was trying to set up an Islamist autocracy and his failure to ease economic hardships led to mass street demonstrations which triggered the army move.

Top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood have been sentenced to jail on charges of inciting violence. Mursi is being held in an unknown location.

The camps are widely seen as the last card in the Muslim Brotherhood’s hands now that the leadership has been weakened and become highly unpopular on the streets.

The Brotherhood emerged from decades in the shadows to win every election since Mubarak’s fall but then struggled to tackle Egypt’s growing economic and social woes.

Thousands of supporters marched from their camp near Cairo University through the centre of the city to the other camp at Rabaa al-Adawiya on Sunday.

“Yes, yes for our president Mursi,” they chanted, waving the Egyptian flag and posters of their deposed leader.

(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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Mursi backers call for marches to foil Egypt crackdown

Egyptian security forces shoot dead dozens of Mursi supporters

1 of 25. Protesters cheer with flags as they gather for a mass protest to support the army in front of the presidential palace in Cairo July 26, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih

By Yasmine Saleh and Matt Robinson

CAIRO | Fri Jul 26, 2013 11:18pm EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) – At least nine people were killed in heavy fighting in Egypt during rival mass rallies for and against the army overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi, who was placed under investigation for murder in an escalating showdown with his Islamist backers.

The bloodshed deepened the turmoil convulsing the Arab world’s most populous country, and may trigger a decisive move by the military against Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood three weeks after it was shunted from power.

In the sprawling capital, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians heeded a call by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to hit the streets and give him a popular mandate to confront violence unleashed by his July 3 overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president.

The Brotherhood mounted counter-demonstrations, swelling a month-long vigil in northern Cairo before violence erupted. A Reuters reporter saw heavy exchanges of gunfire in the early hours of Saturday between security forces and Mursi supporters, who tore up pavement concrete to lob at police.

Clouds of teargas filled the air.

Quoting an unnamed security official, the MENA state news agency reported nine people killed in violence nationwide and at least 200 wounded. A spokeswoman for the pro-Mursi camp said eight Brotherhood supporters had died in the clash near the north Cairo vigil alone, and another said rooftop snipers had opened fire. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.

Of the official death toll, most occurred in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of people fought pitched battles, with birdshot fired and men on rooftops throwing stones at crowds below.

Several of those killed were stabbed, hospital officials said, and at least one was shot in the head.

Following Sisi’s summoning of protests, news of the investigation against Mursi over his 2011 escape from jail signaled a clear escalation in the military’s confrontation with the deposed leader and his Islamist movement.

MENA said Mursi, who has been held incommunicado at an undisclosed military facility since his overthrow, had been ordered detained for 15 days pending the inquiry.

Egypt’s army-installed interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, said month-old Cairo vigils by Mursi supporters would be “brought to an end, soon and in a legal manner,” state-run al Ahram news website reported.

On Facebook, the Brotherhood said the army had stormed its vigil overnight, triggering the violence. An army official, who declined to be named, denied this. He said the clashes were “near the Brotherhood’s sit-in area, but not at it. There is and will not be any attempt to attack the sit-in or evacuate it tonight.”

SISI’S RISING STAR

The Brotherhood is bracing for a broad crackdown by the army to wipe out a movement that emerged from decades in the shadows to take power after Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising against autocrat Hosni Mubarak, only to be deposed after a year in government.

There is deepening alarm in the West over the army’s move against Mursi, which has triggered weeks of violence in the influential Arab state bordering U.S. ally Israel. Close to 200 people have died.

The country of 84 million people forms a bridge between the Middle East and North Africa and receives $ 1.5 billion a year in mainly military aid from Washington.

Fireworks lit up the night sky over Cairo’s central Tahrir Square, where army supporters rallied clutching posters of Sisi in full ceremonial uniform.

In a sign of the general’s rising political star, many of the posters depicted him alongside Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, former military officers who went on to become presidents of Egypt.

“The Brothers stole our revolution,” said Salah Saleh, a horse trainer at the Cairo rally, voicing widespread criticism that Mursi refused to share power after taking office, and then failed to tackle Egypt’s many problems.

“They came and sat on the throne and controlled everything.”

Interior Minister Ibrahim said authorities would act on complaints filed by Cairo residents against the Brotherhood vigils. Many thousands of men, women and children joined Brotherhood supporters at the group’s main round-the-clock sit-in in northeast Cairo.

“It is either victory over the coup or martyrdom,” senior Brotherhood politician Mohamed El-Beltagy told the pro-Mursi rally. “Our blood and our souls for Islam!” the crowds chanted.

The Brotherhood accuses the army and hired thugs of stoking trouble to justify a move against the Islamists.

Helicopters repeatedly buzzed low over the pro-Mursi vigil before flying around Tahrir Square, scattering Egyptian flags over the packed supporters.

MURSI CHARGES

“The Muslim Brotherhood has deviated from the path of real Islam,” said Gamal Khalil, a 47-year-old taxi driver. “The army is the only honest institution in the country.”

The investigation into Mursi centers on accusations that he conspired with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to escape from jail during the 2011 uprising, killing some prisoners and officers, kidnapping soldiers and torching buildings.

Mursi has said local people helped him escape during the upheavals, and the Muslim Brotherhood denounced the accusations leveled against him. Hamas challenged investigators to find “one piece of evidence” that it had meddled in Egyptian affairs.

“At the end of the day, we know all of these charges are nothing more than the fantasy of a few army generals and a military dictatorship,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said. “We are continuing our protests on the streets.”

Convulsed by political and economic turmoil, Egypt is deeply polarized, struggling to make the transition from the autocratic rule of Mubarak to a free and open democracy.

State television screened images on Friday of the celebrations that erupted the night Sisi announced Mursi had been deposed. The narrator declared it “the day of liberation from the Brotherhood occupation.”

“Egypt against terrorism,” declared a slogan on the screen.

The army has appointed an interim government tasked with preparing for parliamentary elections in about six months followed by a new presidential vote. The Brotherhood says it will not join the process.

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla, Yasmine Saleh, Tom Perry, Noah Browning, Tom Finn, Maggie Fick, Omar Fahmy, Edmund Blair, Michael Georgy and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Abdel Rahman Youssef in Alexandria and Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia,; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Egyptian security forces shoot dead dozens of Mursi supporters

Egypt braced for protests as Mursi stands ground

1 of 3. Protesters with flags and a banner reading ”Leave” gather near a lit flare as they chant anti-Mursi and anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans in Tahrir square, while listening to President Mohamed Mursi’s public address, in Cairo June 26, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih

By Asma Alsharif and Alastair Macdonald

CAIRO | Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:48am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt faces a showdown in the streets after President Mohamed Mursi failed, in an address to the nation, to satisfy the demands of opponents who want the Islamist to step down after a year in office.

Days of brawling between his supporters and their rivals have already left several dead and scores injured and the camps now plan mass rallies, raising the risk of bigger clashes that the army warns could prompt it to take command again.

On Friday, Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and their allies will gather in Cairo, as will some opposition groups. On Sunday, the opposition hopes millions will heed their call, a year to the day since Mursi became Egypt’s first freely elected leader.

“I am more determined than ever to go out on June 30 to demand the removal of an absolutely irresponsible president,” Khaled Dawoud, spokesman for a coalition of liberal parties, said on Thursday after Mursi’s marathon late-night address.

The army, which helped protesters topple Hosni Mubarak in 2011, says it will act if politicians cannot reach consensus. The United States, which continues to fund the military as it did under Mubarak, has urged Egypt’s leaders to pull together.

Mursi described his opponents as “enemies” and “saboteurs” loyal to the ousted dictator, whose “corruption” had thwarted him and driven the economy into crisis, though he conceded he had made some mistakes and promised reforms.

He also offered talks on “national reconciliation” and constitutional change to end the polarization and paralysis that he said threatened democracy.

Opponents dismissed that as nothing new. Mursi and his allies complain that their opponents, defeated by the highly mobilized Islamist groups in a series of elections last year, are bad losers who have repeatedly snubbed offers to cooperate.

They in turn say Mursi makes such proposals in bad faith, accusing him of usurping the revolution by entrenching Brotherhood control of the state and “Islamizing” society to the detriment of more secular Egyptians and religious minorities.

“I feel ashamed that this man has become a president of my state,” said Mahmoud Badr, the 28-year-old journalist behind a petition which he says has garnered 15 million signatures calling on Mursi to quit or face mass sit-ins from Sunday.

“Our demand was early presidential elections and since that was not addressed anywhere in the speech then our response will be on the streets on June 30,” said Badr, who told Reuters he had voted for Mursi in last year’s presidential run-off against Mubarak’s last prime minister. “I hope he’ll be watching.”

Islamists say the opposition tactics amount to a “coup” and many who were jailed under Mubarak fear a return of army rule.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN

Urging peaceful protests – and warning “violence will only lead to violence” – Mursi urged his opponents to focus on parliamentary elections, which may be held this year, rather than on “undemocratic” demands to overturn his election on the streets: “I say to the opposition, the road to change is clear,” he said. “Our hands are extended.”

Instability in the biggest Arab nation could send shocks well beyond its borders. Signatory to a key, U.S.-backed peace treaty with Israel, Egypt also controls the Suez Canal, a vital link in global transport networks between Europe and Asia.

“Egypt is historically a critical country to this region U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is on a tour of the Middle East, said on Wednesday, highlighting economic problems.

“Our hopes are that all parties … whether it is the demonstration that takes place on Friday or the demonstration that takes place on Sunday, will all engage in peaceful, free expression … but not engage in violence but help the democracy of Egypt to be able to make the right choices,” Kerry said.

With the government short of cash and seeking funding from allies and the IMF, Kerry said Egypt should curb unrest in order to attract investment and restore vital tourism income. The U.S. ambassador in Cairo has angered opposition activists by saying explicitly that their protests risked being counter-productive.

The secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Cairo-born Turkish academic Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, raised the alarm about the fragility of the democracy Egyptians secured in the Arab Spring uprising two and half years ago:

“I hope Egyptian politics do not become polarized and that the polarization does not turn into clashes,” he told Egypt’s state news agency MENA. “Because if that happened, then it means that there will not be a democratic solution.”

The Muslim Brotherhood’s insistence on its right to rule as it sees fit because of its electoral mandate has drawn comparison with the way Turkey’s Islamist-rooted government, dismissed street protesters earlier this month. In both cases, critics say large minority voices have been ignored.

THREATS

Mursi threatened legal action against several named senior figures and raised the possibility of using military law codes in some cases. He said some judges and civil servants were obstructing him, and accused liberal media owners of bias.

Those attacks, as well as flashes of humor in the speech, showed a more animated Mursi than most Egyptians have seen since he emerged from obscurity as a last-minute stand-in to carry the Brotherhood’s banner in the presidential election. That may play well with his core supporters, if not with critics.

With protesters planning to gather around the presidential palace in a Cairo suburb, the head of the Republican Guard was quoted by the state news agency saying his men would not deploy outside the walls of the compound and so would not confront them – unless “there is an attempt to storm the gates”.

On Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the cradle of the revolution, people have pitched tents and are preparing to demonstrate. As Mursi spoke on a nearby television overnight, Ayman Anwar, a 55-year old computer engineer, was watching with disdain.

“I didn’t come out tonight to listen,” he said. “I came out because I’m angry. No one could have imagined that this would happen to Egypt. We’ve replaced one dictator with another.”

(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, Patrick Werr, Asmaa Alsharif, Tom Perry, Maggie Fick, Yasmine Saleh, Omar Fahmy, Alexander Dziadosz and Shadia Nasralla; writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Egypt braced for protests as Mursi stands ground

Islamists to rally for Mursi as Egyptian tensions rise

CAIRO (Reuters) – Islamist supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will rally in Cairo on Friday in a show of approval for him to upstage opposition protests planned to mark his first year in office at the end of the month.

Reuters: Top News

Islamists to rally for Mursi as Egyptian tensions rise