Post-revolution polls in Egypt

The Coptic pope sounded off the other day about what a monkey's backside the president is.
 
President Morsi has a new twitter strategy designed to clarify all of these "misunderstandings":

Egypt's president, Mohamed Morsi, has announced plans to respond to citizens' concerns every night on Twitter – the latest in a series of media-savvy moves from his administration that appear to be aimed at placating western concerns about his governance.

The Morsi administration has been subject to heightened foreign scrutiny in recent weeks following a crackdown on journalists, activists and media personalities such as satirist Bassem Youssef and Sunday's siege of the seat of Egypt's Coptic church – after which Morsi was criticised for his slow reaction.
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I'd suggest his administrations problems might stem from too much exposure, not too little.
 
Egyptian mob lynches teenage son of Islamist leader

An angry Egyptian mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, accusing him of killing a man over Facebook comments critical of the Islamist movement, said security sources on Saturday.

The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticized the influential Brotherhood on the Internet, sources said.

His action sparked fury in Qattawiya, a village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, where Abdessalam’s father, Rabie Abdessalam, is an official at the local branch of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood from which President Mohamed Mursi hails.

An angry mob surrounded Abdessalam’s house seeking revenge, but the family refused to give Abdessalam up and hurled stones from inside the house at the protesters.

A man outside the house was fatally wounded.

Police tried in vain to contain the violence and attempted to evacuate the Abdessalam family but the mob set fire to the house and in the confusion grabbed Abdessalam and lynched him.
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Egypt is dissolving into angry anarchy. :(
 
Egypt sending a clear message to pro-democracy activists:

Activist Hassan Mostafa, who is serving a two year sentence in prison in Alexandria, was referred to an Egyptian criminal court on charges of "inciting" activists to block Egypt's railway and help suspects evade arrest by police, the Cairo-based Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights stated on Tuesday
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.
 
ANTPogo said:
What does that have to do with the story in my link?
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When the Constitution says that religious law is supreme you get lots of religious nuts enforcing their interpretation of said law.

What is sharia? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it?
 
WildCat said:
When the Constitution says that religious law is supreme you get lots of religious nuts enforcing their interpretation of said law.
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Where was an interpretation of religious law involved in what happened in the story I linked to? A sixteen year old kid got mad at someone who insulted the group his father was the local boss of, and opened fire wildly with a handgun, killing a bystander and wounding someone else. A mob of people furious about the killing surrounded the kid's house (where he'd fled), and another person was killed by stones hurled from inside the house at the mob outside. Eventually the angry mob set the house on fire and lynched the kid, and through it all the police apparently could do nothing to stop it.

This kind of chaotic vigilantism which is plaguing Egypt is because of a breakdown in authority and security, not the imposition of sharia. Egypt's Constitution since 1980 said that religious law was supreme, too, and they didn't have the rising tide of vigilante violence back then that's happening now, so I'm not sure why you think they're related.
 
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Court says Egypt legislature illegally elected

Egypt's highest court ruled on Sunday that the nation's interim parliament was illegally elected, though it stopped short of dissolving the chamber immediately, in a decision likely to fuel the tensions between the ruling Islamists and the judiciary.

The Supreme Constitutional Court also ruled that a 100-member panel that drafted the new constitution was illegally elected.

The immediate impact of the ruling is limited. The Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament, called the Shura Council, will remain in place until elections are held for a lower house, likely early next year. The constitution, which was ratified in a nationwide referendum in December with a relatively low turnout of around 35 percent, will also remain in effect.

Still, the opposition said the verdict shows how Islamists' victories at the ballot box are tainted. They argued that the ruling further challenges the legitimacy of the disputed constitution, which was pushed through the panel by Islamists allied to President Mohammed Morsi.

The two sides are squaring off for what may be a major confrontation on the streets by the end of this month.

[...]

The verdict continues the political confusion that has reigned in Egypt since the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The ruling came as Islamist lawmakers and the judiciary have for weeks been publicly bickering over a draft legislation that lowers to 60 the retirement age of judges, thus pensioning off about 3,000 of them if adopted.

The draft, which could cost the job of more than half the Constitutional Court's 11 judges, has triggered an uproar among judges who see it as a prelude to filling their ranks with Morsi loyalists from the Brotherhood.

Morsi's backers say the judiciary is packed with Mubarak loyalists who are determined to derail the country's shift to democratic rule and force the president out. They have also spoken out against the Supreme Constitutional Court, saying its rulings hinder the nation's progress.

The new constitution restructured the court, reducing its members from 19 to 11, with the most recent join the first to go. The move removed one of Morsi's harshest critics, judge Tehany el-Gibaly.
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I have no idea where this is going to lead, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere good for Egypt or its people.
 
Egypt nears boiling point ahead of weekend protests

Protesters in Egypt plan to gather en masse today and over the weekend, with huge demonstrations expected on Sunday. The opposition will call for President Mohamed Mursi to step down and hold early elections, while his backers are planning their own show of support. Egyptian clerics have warned of ‘civil war’ ahead of rallies:

“Vigilance is required to ensure we do not slide into civil war,” the Al-Azhar institute said. In a statement broadly supportive of Islamist head of state Mohamed Mursi, it blamed “criminal gangs” who besieged mosques for street violence which the Brotherhood said has killed five supporters in a week… There was no immediate sign of trouble as Islamists gathered round a Cairo mosque after weekly prayers to show support for Mursi. His opponents hope millions will turn out on Sunday to demand new elections, a year to the day since he was sworn in as Egypt’s first freely elected leader.
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Opponents were unimpressed by Mursi’s hours-long, televised public address on Wednesday. Egypt’s opposition complains of economic stagnation, poor standards of living and accuses the ruling Muslim Brotherhood of imposing Islamic rule, while the Brotherhood paints some of its opponents as Mubarak loyalists. The Brotherhood blamed anti-Mursi activists for shooting one of its members dead overnight at a party office. The military, which helped realize Mubarak’s ouster last year, is prepared to step in if the protests turn violent.
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:(

Egypt is tearing itself apart, and a lot of people are going to die this weekend...
 
ANTPogo said:
Egypt nears boiling point ahead of weekend protests



:(

Egypt is tearing itself apart, and a lot of people are going to die this weekend...
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Yup.

Demonstrations in Egypt erupted into clashes that killed at least three people and injured dozens, according to local media reports, prompting the U.S. government to warn Americans against traveling to the country.

Violence broke out yesterday in cities including Alexandria and Port Said, as opposition protesters battled supporters of President Mohamed Mursi. At least two people died in Alexandria, including a U.S. citizen who was stabbed to death, and 139 were injured, according to the state-run Middle East News Agency, citing health officials.

The disturbances unfolded two days before hundreds of thousands of Egyptians plan to stage nationwide protests seeking Mursi’s resignation, in what may be the biggest challenge to the Islamist leader since he took office a year ago. Troops have been deployed in the capital of Cairo and other major cities ahead of tomorrow’s planned demonstrations.
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Tomorrow will not just be some protest where "hundreds of thousands of Egyptians plan to stage nationwide protests" as bloomberg writes, it's a bit different this time. The people have reorganized and founded an initiative "Tamarud" which has been able to even penetrate the "couch party" which didn't participate in the 2011 mass protests.

Al Akhbar said:
[...] Mahmoud Badr, one of Tamarrud’s founders, [...] told Al-Akhbar that he and his colleagues came to a realization about the sporadic opposition protests of the past two years. The public failed to respond to such protest calls because they considered them ineffective, producing little results.

“Tamarrud, instead, made a simple proposal to this public, a proposal that suits their nature and does not require a great deal of sacrifice on their part. We asked them to sign a petition to oust Morsi,” he said. “But we also called on them to protest on the set date to defend the free will that they voiced.”

Badr added: “This campaign went to the people on their own turf, transferring the revolution from the squares to neighborhoods, factories, and the countryside.”
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This collecting of signatures has been going on for months and the set single date everyone has signed on to protest is tomorrow, June 30. As of today, 22 million Egyptians have signed!

The full text of the (Tamarud = "Rebel") petition:

Rebel Campaign
(For the destitution of Mohamed Mursi Al Ayat)

We reject you … Because Security has not been recovered so far
We reject you… Because the deprived one has still no place to fit
We reject you … Because we are still begging loans from the outside
We reject you … Because no justice has been brought to the martyrs
We reject you. .. Because no dignity was left neither for me nor for my country
We reject you… Because the economy has collapsed, and depends only on begging
We reject you… Because Egypt is still following the footsteps of the USA

Since the arrival of Mohamed Mursi to power, the average citizen still has the feeling that nothing has been achieved so far from the revolution goals which were life in dignity, freedom, social justice and national independence. Mursi was a total failure in achieving every single goal, no security has been reestablished and no social security realized, thus and gave clear proof that he is not fit for the governance of such a country as Egypt.

That said,
I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am of sound mind and with my full will, as a member of the Public Assembly of the Egyptian people, the destitution of Dr. Mohamed Morsi Isa Ayat, and call for early presidential elections, and I promise to uphold the goals of the revolution and work to achieve them and propagating the Rebel Campaign for masses so that together we can achieve a society of dignity, justice and freedom
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So, 22 million Egyptians have promised to take it to the streets tomorrow, for the right and totally un-sectarian reasons, and know about the largeness of the group of others who have promised as well. :eek::)
 
Streets are filling, march to the presidential palace in two hours. Livestream. It seems the petition signers are professionally counted, with ID. Morsi was elected with 13 million votes. Given that 30% of Egyptians are 14 years old or younger, 22 million is enormous. This observer thinks the institutions are with the people if enough show up, and this activist, as much as she hates the Brotherhood, can't believe that the people are really asking the military to topple the democratically elected president, that this is the outcome of their original revolution? Well, I guess they're just mad as hell and won't take it anymore...
 
Violence less than feared?

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013630212512626804.html

Cairo - Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Cairo and other cities across Egypt, demanding the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi amid sporadic violence that left several people dead.

The rallies started early on Sunday morning in Cairo's Tahrir Square - the cradle of the Egyptian revolution where Morsi had addressed a jubilant crowd exactly a year ago after being inaugurated as the country's first democratically-elected president.

The demonstrations swelled in the evening, as marches from various Cairo neighbourhoods reached the square. Tens of thousands of people also gathered around the presidential palace to press the same demands, chanting “irhal” - “leave” - and waving red cards to symbolically urge Morsi’s ouster.

"It's the same politics as Mubarak but we are in a worse situation," said Sameh al-Masri, one of the organisers on the main stage in Tahrir Square. "Poverty is increasing, inflation is increasing. It's much worse than Mubarak."

There were brief clashes reported in Beni Suef in upper Egypt, where one person was killed, and in Tanta in the Nile Delta, according to state media. Two people were killed in Assiut after unknown gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on them.

The Muslim Brotherhood - the movement that Morsi belongs to - also reported that its headquarters in Cairo was attacked by a mob of armed men.

But by late evening, the protests were nonetheless still largely peaceful, defying expectations of widespread violence.
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