Cairo: The fugitive leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday urged a peaceful “stand” against the coup that overthrew president Mohammad Mursi, on the eve of rival protests possibly presaging a wider crackdown on the Islamists.
“The dignified Egyptian masses...will preserve their rights peacefully,” said Mohammad Badei in a statement. “Turn out, to announce you stand for freedom and legitimacy, and against the bloody coup.”
Egypt was on edge on Thursday ahead of rival protests by the military and Islamists, as the government declared a “war on terrorism” to end violence convulsing the country since president Mursi’s overthrow.
Police said they were planning massive reinforcements to secure Friday’s rallies, which raise the prospect of further bloodshed between Islamists demanding Mursi’s reinstatement and an array of opponents including the military.
The United States said on Wednesday it was “very concerned” by military chief Abdul Fattah Al Sissi’s call for a rally to justify a crackdown on what he called “terrorism and violence.” Washington, which has close ties with Egypt’s military, also announced it had decided to suspend a plan to supply its ally with F-16 warplanes.
The Brotherhood and allied Islamist groups had denounced Al Sissi’s call as “an announcement of civil war” and said they would press on with their own demonstrations on Friday.
Egyptian newspapers, mostly hostile to the Brotherhood, featured Al Sissi’s call, made in a Wednesday speech, in their front page headlines. The state-owned Al Akhbar ran a banner, partially in large red font, reading: “Al Sissi’s message has been delivered. And the people respond: We mandate you.”
“Al Sissi calls. And the people respond,” reported the leading independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm. In Qatar, a Muslim organisation headed by the influential Egyptian-born cleric Yousuf Al Qaradawi issued an edict against obeying Al Sissi’s call, saying it could lead to “civil war.”
The general’s unusual demand — the military insists he is merely a defence minister and deputy premier in the army-installed cabinet — came after calls for a crackdown on Islamists staging sometimes bloody protests since the July 3 coup. “Next Friday, all honourable Egyptians must take to the street to give me a mandate and command to end terrorism and violence,” the general said, wearing dark sunglasses as he addressed a military graduation ceremony near Alexandria.
A spokesman for army-installed interim president Adly Mansour later said Egypt “has begun a war on terrorism”. Hours before Al Sissi’s speech, a crude time bomb placed outside a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansura killed a police conscript, the interior ministry said. In the restive Sinai peninsula, where militants have staged daily attacks on security forces, two soldiers were shot dead in separate ambushes on Wednesday. More than 170 people have died in political unrest since the end of June, according to an AFP tally, many of them in clashes between Mursi’s supporters and opponents.
Huge crowds of Egyptians protested against Mursi on June 30, after just one turbulent year of his presidency. Senior Brotherhood leader Essam Al Erian said Mursi loyalists would not be intimidated by the army chief’s call for mass rallies. “Your threat will not prevent millions from continuously protesting,” Erian wrote on Facebook.
Tamarod, the movement that spearheaded the mass anti-Mursi rallies that led up to the coup, called on supporters to take to the streets again on Friday to support the army. “We call on the great Egyptian people to rally on Friday across Egypt to demand... Mursi’s trial and to support the military in its upcoming war on terrorism.” Mursi’s detention, and the subsequent arrests of senior Brotherhood leaders, have hardened his supporters’ stance.
His family said it would sue Al Sissi and also take legal action outside Egypt. The United States has joined other Western nations in calling for Mursi’s release, although it has declined to characterise his overthrow as a coup, which would force a suspension of US aid.
