Egypt

In Egypt, Morsi loyalists dig in for last stand

The Globe and Mail, by Maggie Michael

Protesters holding sticks and wearing helmets and makeshift body armour stand behind mounds of sandbags, tires and brick walls. They change guards every two hours to ensure they stay alert.

With Egypt’s military-backed government signalling that a crackdown is imminent, supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi are taking no chances with security at their two protest camps in Cairo.

On Wednesday, the cabinet ordered the police to break up the sit-ins, saying they pose an “unacceptable threat” to national security.

Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said the order will be carried out in gradual steps according to instructions from prosecutors. “I hope they resort to reason” and leave without authorities having to move in, Mr. Ibrahim said in a telephone interview.

Ahmed Sobaie, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, derided the cabinet decision as “paving the way for another massacre.”

“The police state is getting ready to commit more massacres against the innocent, unarmed civilians holding sit-ins for the sake of legitimacy,” he said.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf appealed to the government to avoid violence. “We have continued to urge the interim government officials and security forces to respect the right of peaceful assembly,” she said. “That obviously includes sit-ins.”

Organizers are portraying the sit-ins outside the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque in eastern Cairo and a smaller one across the city near Cairo University’s main campus as evidence of enduring support for Mr. Morsi’s once-dominant Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood has so far refused to co-operate with the country’s interim leaders, whom it calls “traitors,” or participate in a military-backed fast-track transition plan to return to a democratically elected government by early next year. Instead it tries to keep thousands of supporters camped out in tents decorated with photos of Mr. Morsi, occupying an intersection facing the mosque.

Authorities have already cracked down on the organization, arresting Mr. Morsi and other senior leaders. On Wednesday, Egyptian prosecutors referred three top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to trial for allegedly inciting the killing of at least eight protesters last month outside the group’s Cairo headquarters.

Security forces also have killed more than 130 protesters during clashes outside the camps on two occasions.

At least six makeshift gates have been erected as the sole entry points to the Rabaah encampment, with dozens of protesters standing guard, checking IDs, searching bags and patting down visitors.

Once through the gates, posters with photos of Mr. Morsi and slogans calling him the “legitimate president” are plastered on tents, corners and light poles while giant loudspeakers play some of his fiery speeches and women chant “Morsi is my president.”

Most protesters echo the demands of the Brotherhood leaders still free: Reinstate Mr. Morsi, reverse all measures taken by the military, including the suspension of the disputed constitution and the disbanding of the Islamist-controlled legislature. Only if these demands are met, they insist, would they halt the two Cairo sit-ins and the demonstrations, which has attracted crowds of up to 20,000.

But privately, the Rabaah protesters acknowledge their sit-in is their last bargaining chip in the face of a fierce onslaught by the military and loyal media that label the encampment as a hideout for terrorists. Islamic militants also have been stepping up attacks against security forces in lawless areas in the Sinai Peninsula, raising fears that extremists could exploit the anger over Mr. Morsi’s removal to spread insurgency.

“We will not have a life outside of here,” Shawki Hamed, a teacher in his early 40s, said while squatting cross-legged inside one of the hundreds of tents now dotting the site. “We have seen with our own eyes the way they manipulate the truth. They attack us, then portray us as terrorists. … If Morsi is not back, our life will be a series of humiliations and fabricated charges.”

The comments reflect the depth of feeling among Mr. Morsi’s supporters and the Brotherhood’s continued ability to mobilize its base with long-honed organizational skills that combine pragmatism and religious piety.

While “victory or martyrdom” seems to be a favourite slogan for a majority of protesters, Gamal Radwan, a Muslim Brotherhood member from the industrial city of Mahallah in the Nile Delta, said: “At the end, we must reach the negotiating [table.] There must be concessions and a meeting point. … Now this is the time for pressure. You press here and I press there until we reach a point that is satisfactory to all of us.”

via www.theglobeandmail.com

Senate roundly rejects proposal to halt Egypt aid, despite divide between tea party

Associated Press, via Fox News

WASHINGTON –  The Senate roundly rejected a proposal Wednesday to redirect aid for Egypt into bridge-building projects in the U.S. after a potential Republican presidential candidate and tea party favorite challenged the Obama administration's refusal to label the ouster of Egypt's president a military coup.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky's amendment to next year's transportation bill would have halted the $1.5 billion in mainly military assistance the U.S. provides Egypt each year.

He cited the U.S. law banning most forms of support for countries that suffer a military "coup," a determination the administration has said it won't make about the Egyptian army's July 3 ouster of the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. And he invoked U.S. infrastructure shortcomings as well as Detroit's bankruptcy and Chicago's violence to make his case for the money to be put back into the domestic economy.

"Our nation's bridges are crumbling," said Paul, who has previously failed in attempts to cut U.S. support programs for Egypt, Libya and Pakistan. "I propose that we take the billion dollars that is now being illegally given to Egypt and spend it at home."

The Senate voted 86-13 against the measure, the first to be proposed in either chamber of Congress since the army arrested Morsi, suspended the constitution and cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood. A series of deadly protests have taken place since in what was once Washington's strongest ally in the Muslim world, but which has faced near constant turmoil since the revolution that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The vote laid bare a stark division among Republicans, pitting libertarians like Paul against hawks such as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who plan to visit Egypt next week at President Barack Obama's request to press for new elections. They were joined by Sens. Bob Corker and Jim Inhofe, the top Republicans on the Senate's foreign relations and armed services committees, in speaking out against the amendment.

"It's important that we send a message to Egypt that we're not abandoning them," McCain said. Right now, Egypt is "descending into chaos. It's going to be a threat to the United States."

Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential rival of Paul's for the GOP ticket in 2016, sought middle ground by urging Egypt's aid to be restructured to better serve U.S. interests. Paul didn't gain Rubio's vote, but he did get that of minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell.

On Tuesday, Graham had told reporters that holding the vote at all could send the wrong signal to Egypt. Cutting off the aid could threaten Israel's security and U.S. counterterrorism efforts, while backing Paul's proposal risked giving the impression that the U.S. is indifferent to the military's actions.

The Obama administration told lawmakers last week it won't declare Egypt's government overthrow a coup, guided by similar concerns about suspending programs that secure Israel's borders and fight weapons smuggling into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. It also fears losing its greatest source of leverage with Egypt's military leadership.

The administration's position is largely supported by Senate Democrats, who voted unanimously against Paul.

"This amendment may be good politics, but it is bad policy," said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

via www.foxnews.com

Egypt Decrees That Pro-Morsi Sit-Ins Be Dispersed

Read on. NY Times, by Mayy El Sheikh and Rick Gladstone

Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency Supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, rested near a barricade during a protest in Cairo early Wednesday

CAIRO — Egypt’s military-led government instructed its security forces on Wednesday to end two large sit-ins in the capital by supporters of the deposed Islamist president, a decree that risked a new round of violent convulsions in the country’s political crisis.

In a televised statement, the interim cabinet said that the sit-ins in support of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, were disruptive and represented “a threat to the Egyptian national security and an unacceptable terrorizing of citizens.”

Tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have been occupying two large squares in Cairo — Rabaa Al Adaweya and Nahdet Masr — to protest the July 3 ouster of Mr. Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president. The protesters have vowed to stay in the squares until he is released from detention and reinstated in office. That outcome has looked increasingly unlikely, as the interim authorities have expanded a crackdown on the Brotherhood and its affiliates and have moved to oust Islamists appointed by Mr. Morsi from government posts.

via www.nytimes.com

Obama sending McCain, Graham to Egypt to meet with leaders amidst unrest

The Globe and Mail, by PATRICIA ZENGERLE

U.S. President Barack Obama has asked two senior Republican senators to travel to Egypt to meet with its military leaders and the opposition, as Cairo’s allies struggle with how to address the turmoil convulsing the country.

Senator John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hope to travel to Egypt next week, Graham said on Tuesday.

“The president reached out to us, and I said obviously I’d be glad to go,” Graham told reporters outside the Senate. “We want to deliver a unified message that killing the opposition is becoming more and more like a coup” and to encourage the military to move toward holding elections.

He said specifics of the trip, including with whom he and McCain would meet, had not yet been worked out.

McCain and Graham, two of the Senate’s most influential voices on foreign policy matters, have at times been harsh critics of Obama’s foreign policy. The White House has recently been reaching out to them on a range of issues.

U.S. officials have been grappling with how to respond to the situation in Egypt since its elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted by the military on July 3.

In particular, they have struggled with how to handle the $1.55-billion in mostly military aid Washington sends to Cairo each year. Egypt has long been an important U.S. ally in a tumultuous region and officials in Washington value their ties to its military leaders, many of whom have studied in the United States.

U.S. law bars sending aid to countries in which there has been a military coup, and Obama administration officials have been scrambling to talk about events in Egypt without using the word.

Morsi is being held in a secret detention facility in Egypt. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, on Monday became the first outsider to see him since he was deposed. His fate - and a deadly crackdown by security forces on his supporters - has raised global anxiety about a possible bid to crush Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Senator Rand Paul has introduced an amendment to a Senate transportation funding bill that would end military aid to Egypt under the law banning aid after coups and redirect the money to domestic infrastructure projects.

Senate Republicans discussed how to deal with the amendment during their weekly lunch meeting on Tuesday. It could come to the Senate floor for a vote on Wednesday, although it was not expected to win much support.

The Obama administration has made clear it does not want to make a decision about events in Egypt - or the aid. Obama’s Democrats control hold a majority of seats in the Senate.

Several Republicans, including McCain, Graham and Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also said they thought the situation in Egypt was too fluid for a vote so soon.

“I may come to think we need to cut off aid, but I’d like to go over there and talk to the military and to any members of the government and Brotherhood factions to find out what is going on on the ground, and send a clear message to the people in charge of Egypt that there are certain expectations here in America that are bipartisan in nature,” Graham said.

Corker said he felt Washington needed to weigh in one way or the other on whether the situation in Egypt was a coup, and look at changing the law if necessary.

“We can’t just leave it hanging out there. We are a nation of laws. That’s where we need to go,” he said. “But now is not the time, September is the time to do after we know the best route forward.”

 

 

via www.theglobeandmail.com

The honourable exit

With Nasser’s military coup of 1952, King Farouk of Egypt abdicated the throne. After years of having the media and historians consider the worst of Farouk, Egyptians are beginning to realize that the man may have had some assets after all.

It is interesting that amidst the violence that erupted in Egypt after the ousting of President Morsi, the quote that surfaced is one King Farouk said as he was about to relinquish his throne; “One single Egyptian drop of blood is more precious than all the thrones of the world; immediate departure is better than spilling Egyptian blood." This quote exonerates the man after years of admonishment. In spite of his drawbacks, King Farouk made the right choice as he went into exile.

King Farouk had the support of many. The colonial British backed him. Capitalists, feudalists, corporate businesses, and the country elitists backed him. In other words, many powerful hands were willing to support him than not, but he opted to suffer exile rather than cause bloodshed. This is the action of honourable sovereigns and true Egyptians.

Another ousted leader was President Mubarak. Mubarak had his drawbacks and lacks, but, again, Mubarak had the support and the system that solidified his presence in Egypt: the National Democratic Party, the Interior Ministry with its manipulative powers, and the affluent. Mubarak may not have been a democratic or visionary leader, but he had affiliates and delegates capable of much destruction. And yet, Mubarak opted to leave quickly and peacefully.

After the July 23^rd Revolution (1952), King Farouk lasted three days—July 23^rd to July 26^th—and he was then bid farewell as he sailed on El Mahrousa, the royal yacht, and sent off to Italy. After the January 25^th Revolution (2011), Mubarak lasted 18 days—January 25^th to February 11^th. In these 18 days, he tried hard to convince Egyptians of the precariousness of what was to follow, of the chaos that might arise, and of the reality of the Muslim Brotherhood’s vendetta and power to no avail. Mubarak stepped down on February 11^th and headed, not overseas as King Farouk was forced to do, but to Sharm el Sheikh, believing that he can be left alone. 

Maybe Mubarak did not have the support of the army, which is the real cause of his final decision. Still, the abdicating process was short and sweet.

And now we come to President Morsi. At the tail end of the presidential election process, President Morsi vowed to wreak havoc if the results were not to his benefit and did not pronounce him the winner. He wins the elections and becomes Egypt’s president.

He then misinterprets the powers bestowed upon him. He announces despotic decrees that crown him a perennial dictator; he resorts to Muslim Brotherhood followers to pad and shield his authority via government and governorate posts. He has the corrupt constitution written in a couple of nights defying Egypt as a whole. Egyptians were furious. They felt betrayed and bamboozled into a corner.

Internationally, the situation was no better. Morsi's dealings with the Ethiopian dam crisis created international strife. The response to the Syrian issue created bewilderment and disgust. Though the cozy relations with Qatar made no sense, the affiliation with Hamas did; by the same token, the abrupt relations with many other Arab countries didn’t make sense either. 

No other president had forsaken or disregarded Egypt as a whole in this manner. And all this occurred in less than 12 months. Egyptians wonder what would’ve happened if he lasted for four years.

The change came abruptly. Egyptians called on their president to steer the country away from disaster. He refused. They went to the streets and demanded his stepping down. He didn’t. And the army played its role in ousting him. Finally Egypt was free again.   Or so Egyptians thought; they celebrated to their hearts content.

But Morsi, and his clan, refused to leave. They had reached power after years of formulating their underground vision, and it was incomprehensible for the MB to abdicate power.

When we compare the royal behaviour of King Farouk, or even the prideful behaviour of Mubarak, we realize how far off Morsi and his clan are from the privilege to lead.

And this is where Egypt is now. Thousands and thousands of Morsi followers are calling for his return. They are staying put in squares around Egypt to tell the world that they have a valid cause. The sit-ins are not peaceful ones.  

If Morsi were anything like the two honourable leaders mentioned, honourable at least in their exit, he would’ve opted to leave Egypt unscathed. However, what a vast difference it is between what is truly an Egyptian trait and what isn’t.

 

How can Egypt get out of crisis?

Read on. BBC News, by Gerald Butt

Egypt must brace itself for many more days, if not weeks, of political turmoil and violence. But there are no signs at this stage that a Syria-style conflict will engulf the country.

Egyptians are discovering in a more public and painful way than other Arab Spring states that removing long-standing authoritarian rule is a lot easier than replacing it with another system of governance.

The priority of the popular uprisings was to topple dictatorships, and little thought was given to what might come next.

The general assumption was that freeing Arab countries from autocracy would automatically herald democracy. But this is where the Arab Spring has come unstuck. For a prerequisite of democracy is politics.

In order for politics to flourish one needs open debate. Yet open debate is not easy to achieve in a country like Egypt where there is no tradition, from school onwards, of the frank analysis of ideas, and the free and peaceful exchange of opinions.

In the absence of all the above, Egypt is floundering as it seeks to create a post-Mubarak political system. The most dangerous symptom of this is polarisation and the absence of willingness to compromise for the sake of the country as a whole.

The political process since the fall of ousted former leader Hosni Mubarak has served only to emphasise the schism in Egyptian society. The Muslim Brotherhood won elections, but then failed to persuade millions of Egyptians that their policies were inclusive.

The army responded to popular dissatisfaction with President Mohammed Morsi by toppling the Muslim Brotherhood administration and thereby alienating something between a third and half the population.

That, surely, should have been the moment for calm attempts at political reconciliation. But, with Mr Morsi under lock and key and with clashes between rival groups on the streets, the military made what was arguably the most damaging decision of all: it urged anti-Morsi protesters to stage a mass rally to give the army a popular mandate to take tough measures against its opponents.

In a stroke, this announcement cut the legs off the ailing figure of Egyptian democracy - for it sanctified the street as the main platform for politics, with force of numbers, rocks, tear gas and bullets taking the place of rational debate.

Bruising confrontation

The formidable challenge for Egypt today is to rescue politics from the street as the first step towards national reconciliation. The problem is finding the means to achieve this.

Until Mohammed Morsi was ousted, the army was regarded as the sole political arbiter in Egypt

The military shows no signs of backing down. Rather, it is stepping up pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, arresting its leaders and threatening to disperse demonstrators.

The Brotherhood, for its part, insists that protests will continue until the military-backed government steps down and the democratically elected one is returned to power. The killings of dozens of Islamists in clashes with the army have only hardened attitudes.

Up until the ousting of Mr Morsi on 3 July, the army was regarded as the sole political arbiter in Egypt. With the military now siding with the anti-Morsi camp, it has lost that role.

No other Egyptian institution or individual appears to be able to take it on.

 

via www.bbc.co.uk

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Says Ousted Egyptian Leader is Doing ‘Well’

Read on.

NY Times, by Kareem Fahim and Rick Gladstone

Manu Brabo/Associated Press A picture of Egypt’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, on a barricade in Nasr City, Cairo, the site of a sit-in by Islamists angry about the change in leadership.

CAIRO — The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on Tuesday that Mohamed Morsi was doing well and that they had discussed the situation in Egypt during their talks on Monday, which were the first time Mr. Morsi, the former president, had been allowed to meet with an international diplomat since the military took him into custody almost a month ago.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Ms. Ashton said that visiting Mr. Morsi had been a condition for her trip to Egypt, and that Egyptian officials “freely offered” her the opportunity.

“He’s well,” Ms. Ashton said, adding that she spoke with Mr. Morsi for two hours. “We had a friendly and open and very frank discussion. He has access to information in terms of TV, newspapers, so we were able to talk about the situation, and we were able to talk about the need to move forward.”

Ms. Ashton said she did not know where he was being held and said that she did not want to characterize their conversation any further, “because in the circumstances, he cannot correct me if I do it wrongly.”

Mr. Morsi has not been seen in public since July 3, when Egypt’s military removed him from power, taking him and several of his aides into custody and holding them without charge. Members of his family said they had not been allowed to communicate with him. For weeks, the military resisted calls, including from Western allies and the United Nations, to release Mr. Morsi as a good-will gesture to his Islamist supporters, who have held continuous sit-ins demanding that he be restored to the presidency.

Mr. Morsi’s supporters have called for more mass rallies on Tuesday.

Last week, prosecutors ordered Mr. Morsi’s formal detention for 15 days pending an investigation into charges related to his escape from prison during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. The charges were part of an intensifying crackdown against Mr. Morsi’s movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist groups that has resulted in arrest warrants or detention for dozens of Islamist leaders.

On Monday, the police arrested Aboul-Ela Maadi and Essam Sultan, senior figures in the Islamist al Wasat, or the Center Party, according to state news media. Prosecutors issued warrants for their arrests last week, accusing the men of inciting violence and “insulting the judiciary,” a crime under Egyptian law.

Mr. Morsi’s removal has plunged Egypt into its worst political crisis since the revolution that felled his autocratic predecessor, Mr. Mubarak, in February 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood has demanded the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi, even as the military has laid the ground work for an intensifying crackdown on the group.

Ms. Ashton arrived on Sunday, the day after police officers and armed civilians killed at least 80 of Mr. Morsi’s supporters in the worst mass killing by Egypt’s security services in recent memory. It was the second time in three weeks that the authorities had fired on Islamist protesters. On July 8, more than 60 people were killed outside the Republican Guard House in Cairo, where Mr. Morsi’s supporters had been demonstrating in the belief that the former president was being held inside.

Since her arrival, Ms. Ashton has met with the interim president, Adli Mansour, his vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, and the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, as well as Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have not been arrested.

In a statement, Ms. Ashton said she was urging Egypt’s interim leaders to make good on their pledge for a cohesive, civilian-led government that included all political factions, including the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies. “This transitional process must lead — as soon as possible — to a constitutional regime, the holding of free transparent elections and the forming of a cabinet with a civilian leadership,” Ms. Ashton said.

 

via www.nytimes.com

Egypt Allows EU Envoy to Visit Morsi

WSJ, by Matt Bradley

 CAIRO—Egypt's interim military rulers on Monday agreed to let the European Union's top foreign diplomat meet with Mohammed Morsi, as concern grew for the former president's welfare nearly a month after his ouster.

Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, would be the first person aside from military personnel to see Mr. Morsi since the army ousted him on July 3 and sequestered him in undisclosed locations. It was unclear late Monday if Mr. Morsi would meet with her. He refused last week to see a group of Egyptian human-rights lawyers who received the military's permission to meet with him.

In a brief interview, Hazem El Beblawi, Egypt's prime minister, confirmed the military's arrangement with Ms. Ashton.

EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton, arriving at a Cairo meeting Sunday, planned to meet Mr. Morsi.

Ms. Ashton's request comes amid rising expressions of concern from lawyers, human-rights activists and foreign diplomats for information on Mr. Morsi's location and welfare. His absence has helped fuel the sense of injustice among Morsi supporters, whose increasingly bloody conflict with Egypt's security services has led to at least 200 deaths since his ouster.

"He is not a prisoner. He is kidnapped," said Negad Al Boraei, a human-rights lawyer and chairman of the Cairo-based United Group law firm, who was among the attorneys Mr. Morsi rebuffed. "Everybody knows that this is a political issue."

Shortly after Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Egypt's defense minister and head of the army, announced that he had removed Mr. Morsi from office following massive protests against his rule, the army said it took the former president to a club owned by its elite Republican Guard in the Cairo neighborhood of Nasr City.

The army hasn't commented since on Mr. Morsi's whereabouts. People close to the military say it is unlikely that Mr. Morsi remains at the club, which functions as a hotel and events venue for military officers.

The military has repeatedly stated that the president is being held in good conditions "befitting a former president" and that it is detaining him to protect him.

Prosecutors formally remanded Mr. Morsi into custody on Friday for 15 days, charging him with murder and espionage. Some human-rights researchers said the list of charges suggested a politically motivated attack.

Mr. Morsi's wife and children have already publicly accused the military of kidnapping the former leader and resolved to press charges against it.

The military-led interim government has rebuffed recent requests by American officials to meet with Mr. Morsi, diplomats say. A request by United Nations human-rights officials for information about Mr. Morsi was rejected two weeks ago.

The New York-based prisoners' advocacy group Amnesty International said on Friday the former president and nine of his aides appear "to be held in a manner which deprives them of the protection of the law, in conditions which put them at risk of torture and other ill-treatment, and which may amount to enforced disappearance."

Some observers have questioned whether the military is exacting revenge on Mr. Morsi. Amnesty International pointed out he was detained along with more than 600 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, at least some of whom remain in jail after failing to come up with bail money. Police and military personnel have also used what human-rights activists describe as excessive force against pro-Morsi demonstrators. Police gunned down at least 74 protesters in a heated early-morning gunbattle on Saturday and another at least 53 during another clash in early July.

Some of Mr. Morsi's absence can also be attributed to the former president himself. The former leader refused to meet with the delegation of human rights lawyers, demanding instead that any visiting legal team include Selim Al Awa, an Islamist legal scholar who ran against Mr. Morsi for the presidency last summer. Mr. Awa didn't respond to requests for a comment on Monday.

"He's a very proud man," said a person close to Mr. Morsi and his family. "I think the idea of doing anything on army's terms will not work with him."

via online.wsj.com

Presidency welcomes talks with 'non-violent' Brotherhood members

Ahram Online

Egypt presidency does not see victims of violence in terms of their affiliation, says media advisor Ahmed El-Muslimany

Egypt's presidency said on Monday it welcomes Muslim Brotherhood members "whose hands are not smeared with blood" for reconciliation as a way out of the current political strife.

The presidency regrets the fall of victims in recent violence in Cairo's Nasr City district, Ahmed El-Muslimany, Egyptian presidential media advisor, said in a press conference, extending condolences to their families.

Since the army deposed president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July amid mass protests against him, the Brotherhood has been staging nationwide demonstrations calling for his reinstatement. Morsi's supporters and opponents have frequently faced off since his overthrow, leading to about 200 dead and hundreds injured in the past few weeks. Eighty civilians, mostly Morsi supporters, were killed and 299 injured when police and pro-Morsi demonstrators clashed at the Memorial of the Unknown Soldier Saturday morning. in Nasr City, Cairo.

El-Muslimany added that the presidency does not view the victims of violence in terms of their affiliation, adding that an investigation by the prosecutor-general's office is in progress.

"We do not wish for anyone to drag the country into unfortunate situations," El-Muslimany said. "We assert that we want justice to take place."

In response to questions on whether police could be implicated in the deaths of protesters amid claims by the Brotherhood and online reports that police fired live bullets at Morsi supporters – a scenario the police denies – El-Muslimany said the issue rests with the judiciary.

"We do not protect anyone and do not cover any wrongdoing. We trust that our judiciary will be impartial and will take all necessary actions against anyone who committed a crime," El-Muslimany said.

The presidency hopes Egypt "overcomes these regrettable events to achieve economic and political progress," he added.

The presidential media adviser also denied that Morsi, who has been held incommunicado since the army deposed him amid mass nationwide protests, is a political prisoner.

"Morsi is not a political prisoner. He faces legal charges that will be looked into by the prosecution and the judiciary," he said.

"The presidency asserts that it does not take sides in a dispute."

On Friday, an Egyptian court ordered the detention of Morsi for 15 days pending investigations into suspected 

collaboration with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in escaping from Wadi El-Natroun Prison and of destroying prison records during the 2011 uprising.

via english.ahram.org.eg

11 bodies found near pro-Morsy sit-in bear "signs of torture"

Al Youm El Sabaa, via Egypt Independent

Eleven bodies found close to the sit-in in support of Mohamed Morsy in Rabea al-Adaweya Square bear "signs of torture," according to an official source at Egypt's Interior Ministry.

Ten individuals have so far complained about undergoing torture by Muslim Brotherhood loyalists at Rabea al-Adaweya and al-Nadha squares in Cairo, the source revealed.

Both squares have been focal points for demonstrators demanding Mohamed Morsy be reinstated as Egyptian president, after the army removed him from power on 3 July.

Both sites have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Morsy demonstrators and security forces and opponents. 

A ministry statement meanwhile announced security forces had ascertaind the circumstances behind three unidentified corpses discovered at Omraniya in Giza, also appearing to show signs of torture, earlier this month.

One suspect had been identified, admitting affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement with other protesters at al-Nahda Square in torturing captives to death.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

 

via www.egyptindependent.com