The northeastern Sinai Peninsula has seen almost daily attacks on security personnel since the Jul. 3 ouster of president Mohamed Morsi. Credit: Adam Morrow/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Oct 12 2013 (IPS)

A period of more than three months since former president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster by Egypt’s powerful military establishment have been marked by almost daily attacks on Egyptian security personnel, especially in the restive Sinai Peninsula. The identity of the attackers remains a mystery.

“The armed groups carrying out the Sinai attacks aren’t drawn from local families and tribes,” Sinai-based journalist Hatem al-Bulk told IPS. “Often masked, they strike their targets and vanish into the mountains.”

“The local people,” he added, “have no idea who they are.”

On Oct. 7, three police officers were killed and dozens injured when a car bomb went off near South Sinai’s regional security directorate."Along with militant Islamist groups, there are those who have an interest in maintaining Sinai's longstanding position as a major arms- and drug-smuggling route."

Six soldiers were killed the same day in a drive-by shooting near the Suez Canal, while a major government satellite transmitter was damaged by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in southern Cairo – the first attack of its kind to be seen in the capital.

The rising tempo of violence comes amid unprecedented polarisation among the Egyptian public over the issue of Morsi’s Jul. 3 ouster. Monday’s string of attacks came one day after more than 50 pro-Morsi demonstrators were killed by security forces in different parts of the country.

After only one year in office, Morsi – Egypt’s first freely elected head of state – was removed from his post and arrested by the military following massive and well-coordinated demonstrations against his presidency. He continues to be held at an undisclosed location by Egypt’s new military-backed rulers.

Morsi’s opponents call his ouster a “second revolution” along the lines of Egypt’s January 2011 uprising, which ended the 30-year-rule of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak. Morsi’s supporters call it a “military coup” against a democratically elected president; a counter-revolution waged by Mubarak’s “deep state”.

The more than three months since Morsi’s removal have witnessed daily demonstrations nationwide, which have remained largely peaceful in nature, demanding the deposed leader’s reinstatement. They have also, however, seen increasingly frequent attacks on security personnel – both police and military – by unknown assailants.

In mid-August, 25 policemen were reportedly killed in a single attack in North Sinai. The incident came five days after hundreds of demonstrators were gunned down when security forces violently dispersed a pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo.

Until now, the violence in Sinai has been confined to the peninsula’s north-eastern quadrant, near Egypt’s borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Monday’s brazen attack on the security directorate was the first such attack in South Sinai.

The violence has prompted Egypt’s military to launch a peninsula-wide operation with the ostensible aim of stamping out “militancy”. Egyptian media, both state-run and private, has heavily promoted the army campaign, portraying it as a U.S.-style “war on terrorism”.

Within recent weeks, the military has demolished numerous homes in north-eastern Sinai, claiming they belonged to militant leaders; almost entirely destroyed the network of tunnels linking Egypt to the besieged Gaza Strip; and killed scores of what it calls “militants and criminal elements.”

Army spokesmen, meanwhile, say that more than 100 security personnel have been killed in the on-going operation.

No groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks, with a few recent exceptions (including the South Sinai attack, which was claimed by an obscure Sinai-based group called ‘Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’).

Egypt’s military-backed authorities say they are the work of “terrorists” with links to the Muslim Brotherhood – the group from which Morsi hails. Since Morsi’s overthrow, hundreds of the Brotherhood’s high- and mid-ranking members have been detained on charges of “inciting violence”.

The Brotherhood, for its part, denies any connection to the violence in Sinai, saying it is committed to peaceful protest with the aim of restoring “constitutional legitimacy”.

Al-Bulk, who is based in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish, says the Sinai-based militants behind the attacks number no more than a couple thousand in total.

“They don’t have a unified leadership,” he said, “nor are they known by a single name.”

According to al-Bulk, Morsi had tried to “come to terms” with some of these groups during his one year in office.

“In return for halting attacks on security personnel and Egypt’s natural gas pipelines, they were given relative freedom of movement,” he said. But he ruled out allegations that the Brotherhood either supported or financed such groups.

Nor does al-Bulk dismiss the possibility that “at least some of these groups are controlled – or at least influenced – by foreign intelligence agencies with interests in Sinai.”

Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is inhabited largely by Bedouin tribes who have traditionally had an uneasy relationship with the central government in Cairo. The last decade of the Mubarak era had been marked by occasional attacks on the peninsula – also by “unidentified elements” – typically followed by the arbitrary arrest of thousands of local men.

Seif Abdel-Fattah, a Cairo University political science professor and former Morsi aide (he resigned from the post last November), pointed to “several parties” with an interest in escalating violence in Sinai.

“Along with militant Islamist groups, there are those who have an interest in maintaining Sinai’s longstanding position as a major arms- and drug-smuggling route,” he told IPS, “not to mention other criminal elements.”

All these groups were prepared to use violence, he added, including attacks on security forces, “when it suits their purpose.”

Abdel-Fattah, too, dismissed the likelihood of direct links between the embattled Muslim Brotherhood and events in Sinai.

“It’s a matter of action, reaction and counter-reaction,” he said. “Every time security forces tighten the noose on these Sinai-based militant groups, they respond by delivering a powerful blow.”

On Wednesday (Oct. 9), a senior army commander – along with three soldiers – was injured in an attack in central Sinai. The same day also saw a handful of attacks elsewhere on the peninsula.

Abdel-Fattah partially attributes Sinai’s ongoing lawlessness to “the regional security vacuum” created by the terms of Egypt’s 1978 Camp David peace agreement with Israel.

Under the treaty’s terms, Egypt can’t make any major military deployments in Sinai without prior Israeli authorisation. Therefore, until the recent military campaign (to which Israel has given its tacit support), the peninsula had remained largely devoid of an effective security presence.

In August, an apparent Israeli drone strike in North Sinai prompted intense speculation about stepped-up Egypt-Israel security coordination.

“Camp David stipulates a degree of [Egypt-Israel] security cooperation in Sinai,” said al-Bulk. “That coordination was maintained under Mubarak, went on under Morsi, and continues now under Egypt’s new military-backed government.”

The killing of Muslim Brotherhood supporters has only strengthened resolve within the party to resist the current regime. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Aug 23 2013 (IPS)

The ongoing crackdown on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi has prompted some analysts to warn of the apparent resurgence of the Mubarak-era police state.

“Since the Jul. 3 military coup against President Morsi, we’ve seen what can only be described as a return of the police state,” Seif Abdel-Fattah, professor of political science at Cairo University and former Morsi aide (who resigned from the post last November), told IPS.

“We’ve now reverted to Mubarak-era fascism, replete with killing demonstrators, raiding homes [of political activists], emergency laws and perpetual surveillance,” said Abdel-Fattah, who is not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since Morsi’s ouster, hundreds – possibly thousands – have been killed by security forces, including Brotherhood members and others opposed to renewed military rule.

On Wednesday Aug. 14, hundreds of demonstrators were gunned down in a violent dispersal of a pro-Morsi protest in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawia Square.

The authorities say that scores of security personnel have been killed in clashes with “armed demonstrators” and in attacks by “militants”.

Speaking on Monday (Aug. 19), social solidarity minister Ahmed al-Borei defended the methods used by security forces to disperse pro-Morsi protests, alleging that demonstrators at Rabaa al-Adawiya were armed and had posed a “threat to national security.”

Following the bloody protest dispersal and the angry demonstrations that came in its wake, the government announced a month-long state of emergency, including an 11-hour daily curfew. A staple of Mubarak’s 30-year rule, Egypt’s emergency law allows police to make arrests without charge and search homes without warrant.

This week, authorities rounded up hundreds of Brotherhood members nationwide, along with figures from allied Islamist groups, such as Egypt’s Gamaa Islamiya. At least 1,000 high- and mid-ranking Brotherhood members are reported to have been arrested to date.

On Tuesday (Aug. 20), Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie was arrested in Cairo and charged with “inciting violence”. His trial has already been set for later this month and he reportedly faces the death penalty if convicted.

“Carrying out mass arrests in such a manner…constitutes nothing less than a return to the Mubarak era, the emergency state, media lies and fabrications,” Gamaa Islamiya declared in a statement.

It went on to note that senior group member Mustafa Hamza had been arrested by “dawn visitors” who raided his home in Egypt’s Beni Sueif province, “taking him from his family without levelling any charges.”

“Dawn visitors” is a Mubarak-era term used to describe early morning raids by security forces on the homes of the regime’s opponents.

The military-backed government, insisting that it is “fighting terrorism,” blames the Brotherhood for a series of attacks on security installations and personnel in the restive Sinai Peninsula.

On Monday, the government announced that 25 policemen had been killed by “suspected militants” near the North Sinai city of Rafah.

The Brotherhood has condemned the violence in Sinai, denying any involvement or that of its Islamist allies. It also strenuously denies any connection to a recent spate of attacks on Christian churches, and has continued to call for strictly peaceful means of protest.

State media organs, meanwhile, along with most of their privately-owned counterparts, have consistently portrayed pro-Morsi demonstrations as “violent” threats to the general public – while providing little credible proof in support of their claims.

Last year Brotherhood candidate Morsi became Egypt’s first-ever freely elected president. On Jul. 3 of this year he was overthrown by the head of the powerful military establishment Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, head of military intelligence under Mubarak, amid massive and well-coordinated demonstrations against his presidency.

Morsi, who faces a raft of criminal charges his supporters say are politically motivated, has been held at an undisclosed location ever since.

Morsi’s opponents call his ouster a “second revolution” along the lines of Egypt’s January 2011 uprising, which ostensibly ended the Mubarak regime.

But Morsi’s supporters call it a “military coup” against a democratically elected president; a “counter-revolution” by Mubarak’s “deep state” which they say has remained deeply entrenched in Egypt’s judicial system, media institutions, intelligence apparatus and security services.

Fears of looming oppression – especially of Islamists – were stoked last month when interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced the reactivation of a Mubarak-era police unit devoted to monitoring and combating “religious extremism”. The unit had been part of Mubarak’s dreaded state security apparatus, known for committing gross rights violations, especially against the regime’s Islamist opponents.

Last week Ibrahim went further, vowing to provide levels of “security” unseen since before Egypt’s Jan. 25, 2011 uprising. “As soon as conditions stabilise and the Egyptian street stabilises… security will be restored to this nation as if it was before Jan. 25 – and more,” he said.

According to Cairo University’s Abdel-Fattah, Ibrahim’s comments “reveal an intention to restore the interior ministry to its pre-revolution glory with all that it entails, including rights violations, spying, heavy-handed policing, a total lack of accountability, and the domination of Egypt’s political and cultural spheres.

“And from what we’ve seen recently,” he added, “it’s already begun.”

Foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdel Ati dismissed any comparison between the Mubarak regime and Egypt’s new military-installed government.

“The emergency law will only last for one month and for one objective: to fight terrorism,” he declared. “And the only way to fight terrorism is to apply the rule of law and some emergency measures, for only one month, to restore law and order.”

Abdel-Fattah, in line with increasingly common opinion, was not reassured. “Since Morsi’s ouster, some of those most closely associated with the Mubarak regime, including key members of Mubarak’s [now defunct] National Democratic Party, have begun returning to political life.”

On Wednesday, Mubarak himself was released from prison after being acquitted of corruption allegations. Although he still faces other criminal charges, including complicity in the murder of unarmed protesters in 2011, the Brotherhood described the development as “a victory for the counter-revolution.”

The Muslim Brotherhood formally renounced violence in the 1950s and says it has used strictly political methods to accomplish its aims ever since. Under Mubarak, the group was outlawed and its members routinely persecuted.

In Egypt’s first post-revolution parliamentary poll in late 2011, the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won roughly half of the seats in the People’s Assembly (later dissolved by the military), while another quarter went to other Islamist-leaning parties.

A street fight in Cairo over ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

As Egypt’s political crisis escalates, supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi accuse the local media – both state-run and private – of ignoring pro-Morsi demonstrations and covering up massive rights abuses.

“Egyptian television is desperately trying to cover up the murder of hundreds of unarmed protesters in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square,” leading Muslim Brotherhood member Qutb al-Arabi told IPS. “It’s even trying to portray slain demonstrators as ‘terrorists’.”

On Wednesday, Aug. 14, security forces in Cairo violently dispersed two six-week-old sit-ins staged by protesters demanding Morsi’s reinstatement. Using live ammunition and teargas, they eventually managed to clear both protest sites."After the coup, the state press immediately stopped publishing anything by Islamist-leaning writers, while all state-run television channels – and most private ones – stopped hosting Islamist-leaning guests." -- leading Muslim Brotherhood member Qutb al-Arabi

As of Thursday night, Aug. 15, Egypt’s health ministry put the number of those killed in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square – the larger of the two pro-Morsi sit-ins – at 288. The pro-Morsi National Alliance for the Defence of Legitimacy, however, puts the number in the thousands.

The veracity of either figure remains impossible to verify at this point.

At least four journalists – including a foreign cameraman for British Sky News – were killed in the violence.

The move ignited nationwide clashes between pro-Morsi demonstrators and security forces, the latter often in plainclothes. A number of police stations throughout the country were ransacked and torched.

The state press, meanwhile, along with most private Egyptian media outlets, praised the security operation against the “terrorists” who had “threatened national security.” Egyptian television showed weapons it claimed had been found at the two protest sites.

“Local media has consistently tried to paint peaceful demonstrators as violent terrorists without producing credible proof of its claims,” said al-Arabi. Reports of alleged weapons found at the two sit-ins, he asserted, had been fabricated by security forces in cooperation with a compliant media.

Since Morsi’s Jul. 3 ouster by the military, nationwide demonstrations demanding his reinstatement have remained largely peaceful in nature, with protesters frequently repeating the chant “Salmiya”, which means “Peaceful”.

Egyptian media has also tried play down the numbers of – or entirely ignore – the ongoing series of demonstrations by the ousted president’s supporters.

“Massive numbers of Egyptians are on the streets nationwide to demand the restoration of democratic legitimacy and to condemn Wednesday’s massacre,” al-Arabi said. “But exact numbers are impossible to gauge because pro-Morsi rallies, especially those outside Cairo, aren’t getting any media coverage.”

Hasan Ali, professor of media at Cairo University, supported al-Arabi’s view.

“Since Morsi’s ouster, the Egyptian media has scrupulously ignored pro-Morsi rallies and marches, regardless of their size, and focused exclusively on anti-Morsi activity,” he told IPS. “In this regard, it has lost any semblance of objectivity or professionalism.”

“Egyptian television is completely ignoring our demonstrations in hope of convincing the public there’s no popular opposition to the military coup,” Mahmoud Sallem, a 30-year-old engineer and pro-Morsi demonstrator told IPS from the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in shortly before its dispersal.

On Aug. 5, authorities banned Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakul Kerman – who had planned a solidarity visit to Rabaa al-Adawayia – from entering Egypt. The following day, she declared: “Only those that support Egypt’s military coup are given a voice in the media.”

According to the Brotherhood’s al-Arabi, who is also a member of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Journalism (responsible for the administration of the state press), said the ongoing news blackout on pro-Morsi activity was part of a larger media campaign against Egypt’s Islamist camp.

“After the coup, the state press immediately stopped publishing anything by Islamist-leaning writers, while all state-run television channels – and most private ones – stopped hosting Islamist-leaning guests,” he said.

Following Morsi’s ouster last month, authorities immediately closed all Islamist television channels, accusing them of “inciting violence”. Security forces also raided Al Jazeera’s Cairo offices, similarly accusing the channel of broadcasting “incitement”.

Prominent private channels known for pursuing a vehemently anti-Islamist line, were left untouched. Based in Egypt’s Media Production City on Cairo’s outskirts, these channels are owned largely by prominent businessmen known to have close associations with the ousted Hosni Mubarak regime.

“These channels, especially ONtv and CBC, are owned by the same forces that led the smear campaign against President Morsi before his ouster,” said al-Arabi. “They also played a central role in mobilising the public for the anti-Morsi rallies on Jun. 30 that preceded the coup.”

Early this month, dozens of pro-Morsi demonstrators were arrested when they attempted to stage a sit-in outside the MPC to demand a “purge” of the media.

Meanwhile, the small handful of non-Egyptian television channels covering the pro-Morsi demonstrations has been subject to frequent harassment and interference.

On Tuesday night, Aug. 13, the Gaza-based Al-Quds television channel reported that its Cairo office had been raided and an employee detained by Egyptian security forces. Al-Quds, one of very few channels covering pro-Morsi demonstrations, is run by Palestinian resistance group Hamas, an ideological offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Last year, Morsi – the Brotherhood’s candidate – became the country’s first-ever freely elected president. On Jul. 3 of this year, he was ousted by Egypt’s powerful military establishment after massive protests against his administration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Morsi’s detractors call his ouster a “second revolution” along the lines of Egypt’s January 2011 uprising that ended the Mubarak regime. Morsi’s supporters call it a “military coup” against Egypt’s elected president; a “counter-revolution” waged by Mubarak’s “deep state.”

Aside from Al-Quds, the few other channels covering pro-Morsi rallies – including Al Jazeera, Jordan-based Al-Yarmouk and London-based Al-Hiwar – have all seen their signals scrambled in recent weeks. The Al Jazeera channels that frequently cover pro-Morsi rallies, especially the network’s 24-hour live Egypt channel, Jazeera Mubasher, all remain subject to frequent interference.

The fight for the airwaves has taken on an international dimension.

Ali pointed to an ongoing “media war” between Al Jazeera, based in Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Qatar, and the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, based in the staunchly anti-Brotherhood United Arab Emirates (UAE). On Wednesday, the UAE voiced its full support for the “sovereign measures” taken by Egyptian authorities against the pro-Morsi sit-ins.

Despite a government-declared state of emergency, the Brotherhood-led National Alliance for the Defence of Legitimacy has called for more demonstrations on Friday, Aug. 16.

Along with Morsi’s reinstatement, demonstrators demand the restoration of Egypt’s suspended constitution and dissolved Shura Council (upper house of parliament) and the prosecution of those responsible for killing peaceful protesters.

Despite the death of Muslim Brotherhood members, others from the group say they will continue to hold peaceful protests until Morsi is reinstated as president. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

The ouster of Egypt’s first freely elected president by the military has led some to warn of a possible Algeria-style civil war. Local analysts, however, dismiss the likelihood of the “Algeria scenario” occurring in Egypt.

“For one, Egypt’s Islamist current is much less extremist than Algeria’s was when civil war erupted in that country,” Cairo-based political analyst Tawfiq Ghanem told IPS.

Numerous comparisons have been drawn with Algeria, where in 1992 the army took over after cancelling elections that Islamist parties were poised to win. The move triggered a decade of fierce civil war between various Islamist groups and the army-backed government, in which tens of thousands of people are thought to have been killed."Egypt's Islamist current is much less extremist than Algeria's was when civil war erupted in that country."

Ghanem, however, dismissed the possibility of such a scenario playing out in Egypt. “Egypt’s Islamist current, including both the Muslim Brotherhood and the allied Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya (which formally renounced violence in 1997), are much more moderate in outlook than their Algerian counterparts were,” he said.

“What’s more, Egypt’s main Islamist factions are considerably more disciplined and have more control over their members than Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front had at the time.”

Ghanem also pointed to Egyptians’ “historical antipathy to violence.”

The Algeria conflict brought numerous atrocities, including the gruesome mass murder of civilians in remote areas of the country – acts widely blamed at the time on breakaway militant Islamist factions. While the government had used such incidents to justify its oppressive policies, evidence later emerged suggesting possible government involvement in the crimes.

Ghanem did not rule out the possibility that “third parties” – not excluding foreign intelligence agencies – “might exploit the current tense situation in Egypt to stage terrorist acts in hopes driving the country towards more violence and chaos.”

Egypt’s remote Sinai Peninsula has witnessed almost daily attacks on army and police installations since Morsi’s ouster, in which at least 13 people have been killed (although reports emanating from Sinai remain difficult to confirm).

On Tuesday, Jul. 16, Israel – in line with the terms of the 1978 Camp David peace treaty – granted Egypt permission to deploy two additional infantry battalions to North Sinai with the ostensible aim of “combating terrorism”.

As a massive pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo enters its third week and with more demonstrations planned for this Friday, the Muslim Brotherhood has reiterated its strategy of pursuing strictly peaceful means of protest.

“We will continue to resist this military coup with peaceful protests. We will not respond to any provocations,” the group said in a statement earlier this week. “We will escalate our resistance through peaceful pressure using all available means.”

Further heightening tensions, Egypt’s nebulous “Black Block” movement – a black-clad anti-Islamist group known for its readiness to adopt violent tactics – declared on Jul. 16 that it would forcibly disperse pro-Morsi rallies if security forces had failed to do so by the last day of Ramadan on Aug. 8.

According to Ghanem, whichever side ends up resorting to violence will lose the battle for public opinion. “Whoever is perceived as the aggressor will lose the sympathy of the Egyptian street – along with their short- to mid-term political future.”

Dozens have already been killed and hundreds injured since the controversial ouster of Mohamed Morsi, elected a year ago in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential poll.

The clashes come amid massive pro-Morsi demonstrations, marches and sit-ins nationwide – some of them reportedly drawing hundreds of thousands – to demand the ousted president’s reinstatement.

The exact size of the rallies remains difficult to gauge due to a general media blackout on most pro-Morsi activity.

Following the army’s “removal” of Morsi, a host of Islamist leaders – especially those from the Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which Morsi hails – were rounded up by the authorities. The ousted president himself remains detained by the army at an undisclosed location.

Morsi’s opponents describe the Jun. 30 protests that led to his ouster as Egypt’s “second revolution,” reflective of the “popular will.” Morsi’s supporters see it as a military coup against a democratically elected president; a “counter-revolution” planned and executed largely by elements still loyal to the Mubarak-era ‘deep state’.

It is the second time since the January 2011 revolution that Egypt’s military has stepped in to reverse an Islamist electoral victory. Shortly before Morsi’s election, Egypt’s then-ruling Supreme Military Council dissolved the lower house of parliament – three-quarters of which was held by Islamist parties – based on a court ruling widely seen as politicised.

“First they dissolved the democratically elected lower house of parliament, then they mounted a military coup that kidnapped the elected president,” the Muslim Brotherhood declared in statement this week, “all without any reference to the people.”

On Jul. 16, Mansour appointed a government of “technocrats” drawn almost entirely from Egypt’s liberal opposition. Islamist parties and groups, meanwhile, led by the Brotherhood, refuse to engage in the army-backed political process, and insist Morsi is Egypt’s legitimate head of state.

Islamist President Mohamed Morsi’s first turbulent year in office will end with two massive rallies in Cairo, both expected to draw hundreds of thousands: one by his mostly Islamist supporters and another by secular opposition forces who demand he step down.

For the last three months, Cairo has been bracing for massive opposition demonstrations to demand the President’s resignation and early elections. Protest calls have been spearheaded by Egypt’s anti-Morsi Tamarrud (‘Rebel’) signature drive, which claims to have gathered 15 million citizens’ endorsements in support of its demands.

Opposition forces demanding Morsi’s ouster under Egypt’s National Salvation Front (NSF) the opposition umbrella group, argue that Morsi has failed during his one year in office to improve the lives of Egyptians or realise popular demands emanating from Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

Endorsed by almost all of Egypt’s non-Islamist political groups – and heavily promoted on much of Egypt’s anti-Islamist privately-owned media – Sunday’s demonstrations are expected to witness a massive turnout."Morsi shouldn't have waited...until people were hitting the streets to demand his departure."

“On Jun. 30 we will converge in the millions on Tahrir Square and the presidential palace in Cairo, where we will remain until Morsi steps down,” Mahmoud Badr, founder and leading member of the ‘Rebel’ campaign told IPS.

Egypt’s first-ever freely elected head of state, however, will not be facing his many opponents alone on Sunday. On Friday (Jun. 28), Morsi’s supporters began to arrive in the thousands in Cairo’s Nasr City district in a show of support for the embattled president and his “democratic legitimacy.”

Morsi narrowly defeated Ahmed Shafiq, ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in 2012 presidential polls that were widely regarded as free and fair. Morsi’s supporters, led by the Muslim Brotherhood group from whose ranks he hails, say that calls for Morsi’s departure are undemocratic, and accuse Egypt’s secular opposition of failing to respect the results of the ballot box.

Friday’s planned pro-Morsi demonstrations, which have been endorsed by most Islamist parties and groups, will be the second such show of strength within one week. Last Friday (Jun. 21) saw hundreds of thousands converge on the same location both to express support for the president and to “say no to violence.”

With both sides now vowing to stage open-ended sit-ins, the tense standoff has prompted widespread fears of violence between the two rival camps. This week has already seen clashes in several Egyptian provinces – including Daqahliya, Sharqiya and Zagazig – between the president’s supporters and opponents, which have left at least three people dead and scores injured.

On Thursday (Jun. 27) Hasan Shefai, senior advisor to the Grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al-Azhar (the highest seat of learning in the Sunni-Muslim world), warned of the danger of violent confrontations nationwide.

He went on to urge both of Egypt’s political camps to “show restraint or else risk civil war.”

In a statement issued the same day, Al-Azhar called for the formation of a “national reconciliation council” – consisting of representatives of all political currents – tasked with resolving the political crisis through dialogue.

Earlier in the week, defence minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued similar calls for reconciliation, warning that Egypt’s armed forces would not allow the country to “fall into a dark tunnel of civil unrest and killing, sectarianism and the collapse of state institutions.”

His comments prompted a flurry of media speculation about the possible return of the military to Egypt’s domestic political arena in the event that Sunday’s planned protests forced Morsi to relinquish authority.

A presidential spokesman, however, quickly dismissed the idea, stressing that the military’s role was merely to protect Egypt’s borders and secure vital state institutions.

“There is a president ruling the country democratically, through democratic elections,” he said. “There is no political role for the army.”

He added: “President Morsi represents the commander-in-chief of the military; anything that happens within the army is coordinated through him.”

Since Tuesday (Jun. 25), military forces have been deploying nationwide in anticipation of the upcoming wave of demonstrations.

Anti-Morsi protesters themselves appear divided on what role the military should play. On Wednesday, one group of anti-Morsi demonstrators in Tahrir Square waved banners bearing pro-army slogans while another chanted in unison, “No to military rule.”

From Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011 until Morsi’s assumption of the presidency a year ago, Egypt’s Supreme Military Council held executive authority. During its one-and-a-half-year stint in power, the military was frequently accused by activists and revolutionary groups of committing gross rights violations.

In a highly anticipated address to the nation on Wednesday night (Jun. 26), Morsi reiterated calls for “national reconciliation,” but otherwise barely mentioned the imminent rallies. In a bid to assuage his critics, he also announced the formation of a committee tasked with hearing opposition proposals for constitutional changes.

Opposition leaders, however, rejected Morsi’s overtures, describing them as “too late.”

“The opposition has been demanding constitutional change since last year,” said the ‘Rebel’ campaign’s Badr. “Morsi shouldn’t have waited to make this concession until people were hitting the streets to demand his departure.”

Badr went on to predict that, like Mubarak in his final days in power, Morsi would deliver “three more speeches” before announcing his decision to step down.

The opposition NSF likewise rejected the president’s proposition. “Morsi’s speech only deepens our resolve to press for early presidential elections in order to achieve the aims of the revolution,” it declared in a statement.

Morsi supporters, calling his democratic legitimacy a “red line”, have vowed to remain in the area indefinitely to protect the nearby presidential palace from anti-Morsi demonstrators on Sunday.

Thousands of opposition protesters, meanwhile, remain arrayed in Tahrir Square and outside the Egyptian Defence Ministry to demand Morsi’s ouster.

“This is a recipe for disaster; neither side is prepared to give way,” 52-year-old government employee Magdi Yusuf – who plans to keep his distance from both demonstrations – told IPS.

Echoing a fear common to most Cairo residents, he added, “Violence appears unavoidable at this point.”

In the coastal city Alexandria, clashes erupted on Friday afternoon between rival demonstrators, some reportedly armed with shotguns.

Supporters of President Morsi stage a rally last November outside Egypt's High Constitutional Court against alleged judicial corruption. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jun 10 2013 (IPS)

The post-revolution struggle between Egypt’s judiciary and President Mohammed Morsi, the country’s first Islamist head of state, finally seems to be coming to a head over controversial draft legislation regulating judicial authority.

The most contentious article of the draft judicial authority law being debated by the Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt’s parliament, currently endowed with legislative powers) is one reducing the official retirement age for judges from 70 years to 60.

If passed, the law, tabled by the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party and endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood, would effectively force thousands of Egyptian judges into retirement.

Opponents of the draft, which include the majority of judges and much of Egypt’s secular opposition, decry the legislation as a naked power grab by the Brotherhood – the group from which Morsi hails – aimed at stocking Egyptian courts with elements loyal to the group.

Prominent leftist opposition figure Hamdeen Sabbahi, who lost to Morsi in Egypt’s first-ever free presidential election almost one year ago, recently declared that the law’s passage would lead to a “massacre” of the nation’s judges.

“There is a clear intention by the Muslim Brotherhood to dominate Egypt’s judicial institutions, thus making it almost impossible to provide judicial oversight of future elections,” Sabbahi said last month while taking part in a protest outside the Shura Council’s Cairo headquarters."There is a clear intention by the Muslim Brotherhood to dominate Egypt's judicial institutions."
-- Hamdeen Sabbahi

He asserted that parliament’s upper house, which holds legislative power until the election of a new lower house (the date for which remains in legal limbo), “does not have the right to legislate since it was elected by only seven percent of the voting public”.

Gaber Gad Nassar, constitutional law professor at Cairo University, voiced similar sentiments.

“This draft legislation, which would effectively see the forced retirement of some 8,000 serving judges, constitutes an attempt by the Brotherhood and its allies to take over the judiciary,” Nassar told IPS.

He claimed that the Brotherhood intended “to appoint their own judges so they will be able to rig upcoming parliamentary elections in their favour”.

Meanwhile, supporters of the draft legislation – including the presidency, the Muslim Brotherhood and the latter’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – strenuously deny the allegations, saying the law simply aims to purge the judiciary of elements loyal to the ousted Mubarak regime.

Walid Shirabi, spokesmen for the “Judges for Egypt” movement (comprised of judges and judicial officials who support the Brotherhood and the presidency), described the opposition’s claims that the law had been tailored to fill judicial institutions with pro-Brotherhood judges as “illogical”.

“According to the constitution, Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) is responsible for the appointment of judges [who must then be approved by the president],” Shirabi told IPS. “And the SJC does not contain a single Muslim Brotherhood member.”

The 15-member SJC represents the country’s highest judicial authority.

Shirabi refuted claims that the abrupt retirement of thousands of judges would adversely affect the functioning of Egypt’s judiciary, already bogged down with literally millions of outstanding legal cases across the country’s expansive court system.

“Rather, it will expedite the judiciary’s work by seeing the appointment of fresh cadres of judges,” he said.

Shirabi also challenged claims by judges and opposition figures that the Shura Council lacked legitimate authority to adopt new legislation.

“Egypt’s recently-approved constitution gives the Shura Council the right to legislate until the election of a new lower house,” he said. “Any assertions otherwise are aimed at maintaining the corruption of the Mubarak regime, which raised the judges’ retirement age from 60 to 70 with the express purpose of keeping pro-regime judges in service.”

The post-revolution row between the judiciary and Egypt’s Islamist forces began almost exactly one year ago, when the High Constitutional Court (HCC) declared the law governing Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls – held in late 2011 and early 2012 – unconstitutional.

The following day, Egypt’s then-ruling Supreme Military Council ordered the dissolution of the newly-elected People’s Assembly (parliament’s lower house), half the seats of which had been won by the Brotherhood’s FJP while another quarter had gone to other Islamist parties.

Although many of the Brotherhood’s political rivals had applauded the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament, legal experts questioned the legitimacy of the HCC ruling on which the move had been based.

“Only one third of the seats in parliament – those reserved for independents – were constitutionally questionable,” Atef al-Banna, constitutional law professor at Cairo University, told IPS at the time. “But the HCC failed to provide a legal rationale for its call to dissolve the entire assembly.”

Speaking in April, Pakinam al-Sharqawi, Morsi’s aide for political affairs, charged the judiciary with unfairly interfering in Egyptian domestic politics “since the dissolution of the People’s Assembly last year” – a move she described as “dangerous and unprecedented”.

“Never before has a court been allowed to effectively dissolve a sitting parliament that had been democratically elected by 30 million citizens,” she asserted.

The past year has seen several more clashes in the on-going confrontation between judiciary and presidency, including an unsuccessful attempt by the latter to reinstate the dissolved People’s Assembly, a successful attempt to appoint a new prosecutor-general, and an executive decree temporarily shielding presidential decisions from judicial oversight.

In the meantime, Shirabi contends, a number of leading judicial officials have “continued to interfere in other branches of government by overturning executive orders, working for the dissolution of democratically elected bodies, and otherwise hindering the functioning of the state”.

As it now stands, the Brotherhood’s FJP, which enjoys a considerable majority in the Shura Council, appears intent on seeing the draft law passed, while spokesmen for the judiciary demand that any debate of the bill be postponed until the election of a new lower house.

Last week, to the fury of many judges and opposition figures, the FJP-led Shura Council referred the draft law to its legislative affairs committee for discussion. It remains unclear, however, when – or if – the council will put it to a vote.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Judges Club, an unofficial association of judicial officials known for their antipathy towards Morsi, has threatened to suspend all courtroom activity nationwide in the event that the bill becomes law.

The social media that allowed Egyptian activists to organise the massive rallies that led to Mubarak's ouster now play a less constructive role. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, May 15 2013 (IPS)

More than two years after social media networks helped Egyptian activists organise massive street protests that led to the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak, these networks are now playing a less positive role, often serving as a platform for incitement, rumour-mongering and downright disinformation.

“The same social networks that activists used in unison to bring down Mubarak are now being used to score short-term political goals, manipulate public opinion, and even incite violence,” Adel Abdel-Saddiq, social media expert at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told IPS.

During the 18-day Tahrir Square uprising in early 2011, social networking websites, most notably Twitter and Facebook, allowed anti-regime activists to organise mass rallies while also providing platforms for articulating political demands.

“This new form of media proved essential to mobilising hundreds of thousands of protesters in multiple locations simultaneously,” Ammar Ali Hassan, a prominent Egyptian political analyst, told IPS. “It also allowed users to obtain information and news from sources other than official government channels.”

In the more than two years since the uprising, the same social media sites have become regular fixtures of public discourse. Egypt’s Supreme Military Council, for example, which ruled the country from Mubarak’s ouster until the election of President Mohammed Morsi last year, continues to issue official statements and declarations via Facebook."Social media now plays a more destructive role."
-- Adel Abdel-Saddiq

“In the wake of the revolution, Egypt’s politically active class adopted Facebook as its preferred means of communication,” Abdel-Saddiq explained. “The then-ruling military council realised this and began communicating with the public via this new medium, which had proven so instrumental to the demise of the former regime.”

Celebrated as an almost indispensable ingredient of any modern-day popular uprising, social media in post-revolution Egypt has nevertheless begun to reveal a darker side.

The anonymity of social media

“Social media now plays a more destructive role, often being used to provoke anger and hatred and spread unsubstantiated rumour,” said Abdel-Saddiq. “Since the revolution, we’ve seen it used to incite protesters against police, the secular opposition against Islamist groups, and Muslims against Christians and vice versa.”

Abdel-Saddiq went on to recall several instances in which false reports appeared online with the apparent intention of inciting violence.

“Anonymous users have posted reports online, which later proved false, stating that ‘security forces are firing on unarmed protesters’, for example, or that ‘Muslims are attacking Christians’,” he described.

“Once this is done, it’s a simple matter, again with the use of social media networks, to shepherd large numbers of angry protesters to specified venues, thereby creating fertile ground for violent clashes,” Abdel-Saddiq explained.

This phenomenon occurred more than once in the immediate wake of the uprising, when sectarian passions were enflamed by a wave of Muslim-Christian violence, behind which many observers saw the hand of an unseen third party.

“The public soon began to wake up to the fact that false reports on social media were being employed by certain parties – be they counter-revolutionary forces, political rivals or foreign intelligence agencies – to destabilise post-revolution Egypt,” said Abdel-Saddiq.

In a related incident in late 2011, an anonymous Facebook group appeared, purporting to represent “The committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice in Egypt.” The page, which sparked widespread fears of the emergence in Egypt of a Saudi Arabia-style “morality police”, bore the logo of Egypt’s Salafist Nour Party.

The party, however, quickly denied any link to the Facebook group, the creators of which remain unknown to this day.

“One of the drawbacks of online social media is that anonymous parties can create fake websites or social media accounts, allowing them to issue false statements on behalf of political figures or groups,” said Hassan.

Media with no oversight

Online video-sharing platforms such as YouTube, meanwhile, have also come to play a less positive role than they did during the uprising, say experts.

“Videos posted online gave the 2011 uprising additional impetus, allowing protesters in different parts of the country to see what was happening elsewhere,” said Abdel-Saddiq. “Nowadays, by contrast, videos posted online are increasingly being used to incite and subvert.”

He cited several incidents in which provocative photos or videos appeared on social media venues, which, after eliciting angry reactions, were later proved entirely false or highly exaggerated. In many cases, he said, such videos “turn out to be older than initially purported and portray entirely unrelated events”.

One such video that appeared in 2011 purporting to show an Egyptian policeman hurling a protester’s prone body onto a rubbish heap, Abdel-Saddiq recounted.

After the video triggered a wave of public outrage against the police – and after major television networks picked up the images – it emerged that the incident had not even taken place in Egypt.

More recently, in early April, a video circulated widely among Egyptian social media users showing a group of Muslim men sexually assaulting a Coptic-Christian woman in Upper Egypt. The video, which appeared at the height of unrelated sectarian tensions in Cairo and Alexandria, initially prompted a storm of popular anger. It later turned out to be from 2009 and was related to an Upper Egyptian tribal vendetta rather than sectarian conflict.

“That was a clear attempt by an unknown party to incite violence between Egypt’s Christians and Muslims,” said Hassan. “Incidents like this have happened so often in the post-revolution period that most social media users now question the source – and production date – of videos appearing online.”

Abdel-Saddiq blames this dangerous state of affairs on the lack of legal oversight of social media platforms in Egypt, where “laws against libel and slander only apply to traditional media – i.e., television, radio and newspapers – but not to the Internet”.

Following upcoming parliamentary polls slated for later this year, he hopes to see the ratification of legislation regulating social media. “But until then,” Abdel-Saddiq said, “we’ll continue to see newfound freedoms of expression, which most Egyptians still aren’t used to, being used irresponsibly and without restraint.”

Egyptians queue for subsidised bread amid steadily rising commodity prices. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, May 10 2013 (IPS)

Regardless of who is responsible for Egypt’s current political impasse – be it the administration of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi or an aggressive secular opposition – local experts are certain of at least one fact: Egypt’s dire economic circumstances will not improve without political stability.

“Egypt’s economic situation is intrinsically tied to the political one,” economic analyst Hamdi Abdel-Azim told IPS. “Economic stability cannot be achieved amid the turbulence and uncertainty, which for months has characterised Egypt’s political scene.”

Upon assuming the presidency last year, Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected head of state, inherited a host of long-term economic challenges from his predecessor, ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Chronically high rates of poverty and unemployment, deteriorating public services and infrastructure, an ever-widening state budget deficit, high foreign debt and mounting disparities between rich and poor are just a few of the issues that Mubarak’s regime failed to solve after three decades in power.

Abdel-Azim cited “mismanagement and corruption” as part of the reason for these problems. Still, the country’s economic position “has worsened considerably” in the nine months since Morsi, who hails from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, took highest office, he added.

Within this period, according to Abdel-Azim, the Egyptian pound has declined in value against the dollar, while Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have fallen considerably. Domestic debt has also risen to roughly 187 billion U.S. dollars. “Numerous local companies have been forced out of business, swelling the ranks of the unemployed,” the analyst added.

Egypt’s tourism sector, meanwhile, long considered one of the country’s chief sources of foreign currency, continues to reel from the cumulative effects of long-term political instability.

Since May 2011, Egypt has been negotiating a 4.8-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund. The proposed loan, however, will be contingent upon a raft of difficult economic reforms, including major subsidy reductions and tax increases.

Egypt’s political opposition, led by the National Salvation Front (NSF), an umbrella grouping of various opposition parties and movements, has been quick to blame President Morsi for the country’s ongoing economic woes."Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are responsible for Egypt's deteriorating economy."
--Amr Hamzawy

“Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are responsible for Egypt’s deteriorating economy,” Amr Hamzawy, former MP and a leading NSF member, said in April. “The government is pushing through economic laws without consulting other political forces, while Egypt’s poor are paying the price for the Morsi administration’s failures.”

Some elements of the opposition have limited their demands to a handful of constitutional changes, a cabinet reshuffle and the dismissal of Egypt’s Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general. Others, however, have gone so far as to demand that Morsi step down in advance of snap presidential elections.

Within the last five months, the NSF-led opposition has organised numerous demonstrations and marches, many of which have ended in violence. The Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, blames Egypt’s faltering economy on the opposition’s more extremist elements, whose endless calls for strikes and protests have resulted only in further destabilisation.

“The main reason for worsening economic conditions is the insistence by the opposition – especially the NSF – on inflaming the political situation by encouraging violent demonstrations, thus further destabilising the country,” Murad Ali, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, told IPS.

“In his trips abroad, President Morsi has tried to attract foreign investment to Egypt in hopes of bolstering the economy and realising longstanding demands for social justice,” Ali added. “But these efforts have largely failed to bear fruit due to perpetual domestic political instability, which has been consistently encouraged by the opposition.”

Local captains of industry, meanwhile, warn that Egypt’s economic prospects will remain dim indeed if the political situation does not settle down.

“Failure to resolve the current political impasse will eventually lead to the destruction of Egypt’s tourism industry,” Ilaham al-Zayat, head of the Union of Egyptian Chambers of Tourism, told IPS. “The steadily declining tourist numbers that Egypt has suffered since the [2011] revolution will eventually drive local tourism companies out of business.”

“Without a degree of long-term political stability,” he added, “tourist numbers will never return to pre-revolution levels.”

Gamal Eddin Bayoumi, secretary-general of the Cairo-based Union of Arab Investors, agreed with al-Zayat’s general assertion.

“Egypt’s economic deterioration cannot be stopped without an end of the current state of political uncertainty,” Bayoumi told IPS. “No investor will put his money in a country perceived to be unstable or which lacks state institutions that can guarantee the future of his investments.”

Abdel-Azim blames the ongoing political crisis on both the presidency and the secular opposition.

“The Morsi administration has taken a number of poor decisions without considering their long-term effects, while the president’s economic advisors have lacked adequate qualifications,” he said. “The opposition, meanwhile, doesn’t want to accept the results of Egypt’s first democratic presidential elections, which brought Morsi to power.”

On May 7, in an effort to placate critics, Morsi replaced nine government ministers, including those responsible for sensitive economic portfolios – finance, investment, planning and international cooperation, petroleum and agriculture. Notably, most new cabinet appointees are either Muslim Brotherhood members or sympathisers.

Opposition spokesmen blasted Tuesday’s cabinet reshuffle. “These changes don’t amount to anything,” Amr Moussa, a leading NSF member and head of the liberal Conference Party, said. “Another cabinet shake-up will be necessary before long.”

Even though the reshuffle included the heads of strategic economy-related ministries, “the changes fail to meet opposition demands for a more inclusive government,” said Abdel-Azim. “This will only make resolution of Egypt’s dire economic problems all the more difficult.”

Egypt has recently stepped up its support for Syria’s armed insurgency, with President Mohamed Morsi urging disparate anti-Assad factions to “coordinate” with a leading Syrian opposition coalition that has taken Cairo as its headquarters.

“Egypt has recently begun translating words into deeds in terms of its stated support for the Syrian rebels,” Mohamed Saeed Idris, foreign affairs expert at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Last week Egyptian foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr met with recently defected Syrian prime minister Riad Hegab. The two men reportedly discussed “possible means of ending the suffering of the Syrian people and realising their aspirations for freedom, dignity and change in Syria,” according to a foreign ministry spokesman.

One week earlier, at an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Cairo, President Morsi called on Syria’s various anti-Assad factions to coordinate their activities with the recently-formed National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces – currently based in the Egyptian capital – “in order to present a unified vision for building a democratic Syria.”

Egypt, which has been largely preoccupied with its own domestic political crises since the 2011 revolution that brought down the Mubarak regime, first came out in support for Syria’s armed opposition last summer.

At an August summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran, Morsi irked his Iranian hosts – who have long counted Syria as a regional ally – by declaring that the Assad regime had “lost legitimacy”. Although Morsi ruled out foreign military involvement, he went on to assert that the crisis in Syria could only be resolved through “effective intervention” from outside.

At a November conference in Doha aimed at unifying the Syrian opposition (at which the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces was born), Egypt went a step further. On the event’s sidelines, the Egyptian foreign minister reportedly told Syrian opposition representatives that Egypt was “prepared to provide all possible assistance” with a view to ensuring “a smooth transfer of power in Syria.”

Shortly afterward, Syria’s newly formed opposition coalition set up its headquarters in Cairo. In a statement, Egypt’s foreign ministry stressed “Egypt’s readiness to offer all means of assistance to the Syrian coalition in the coming period.”

According to Idris, who served as head of Arab affairs in Egypt’s first (since-dissolved) post-revolution parliament, Egypt’s stated position on Syria is now closely aligned to those of the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar – both of which are close to Washington and staunch opponents of Iran.

“Like the Gulf States, elements of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – from which President Morsi hails – view Tehran with suspicion,” Idris said. “They believe that Iran aims to spread Shiite ideology in Sunni-Muslim Egypt.”

Morsi’s election last summer had been followed by a flurry of conjecture that Egypt-Iran diplomatic relations, suspended since 1979, were on the verge of being restored. Differences over Syria, however, now appear to have put any notion of rapprochement on hold.

“The resumption of ties with Iran depends entirely on Tehran’s position on the Syria crisis and the acceptance of Egyptian – and Arab – public opinion vis-à-vis that rapprochement,” Egypt’s President declared following the OIC summit, which was attended – in a historical visit – by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Idris also attributes Egypt’s current Syria policy to the fact that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood represents the “main component” of the ongoing insurgency there. While the two Islamist movements nominally work independently of one another, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless shares close affinity with its Syrian counterpart.

“The two groups don’t have an organisational relationship,” Hamdi Hassan, a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, told IPS. “But they are closely affiliated ideologically.”

A member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – 27-year-old Mohamed Mehrez – was reportedly killed in Aleppo last week while fighting alongside Syrian rebel forces.

Hassan insists, however, that Morsi’s position on Syria is based entirely on “ethical considerations”. The Assad government, he asserted, “is committing war crimes against the Syrian people; it doesn’t matter whether those suffering are Muslims or Christians.”

Some analysts have suggested that Morsi’s support for Assad’s opponents leaves Egypt within the so-called ‘moderate axis’ of U.S.-friendly Arab states in the region. This grouping has traditionally included Jordan, the Gulf States and – before Hosni Mubarak’s departure two years ago – Egypt.

This ‘moderate axis’ is countered by an Iran-Syria alliance, which has historically opposed U.S. policy in the region. This grouping has traditionally been characterised by its support for armed resistance groups – especially Hamas and Hezbollah – against Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine.

The Brotherhood’s Hassan disputes assertions that, by coming out against the Assad regime, Morsi’s Egypt is choosing to remain within the pro-U.S., anti-Iran regional bloc.

“Just because Egypt’s stance on Syria is in line with the U.S. position doesn’t mean we’re pursuing Mubarak-era (pro-U.S.) policies,” he said. “The Mubarak regime didn’t formulate policy based on ethical considerations; rather, it blindly followed U.S. and Israeli diktats at the expense of Egypt’s own national interests.”

Idris, too, defended Morsi from charges that he – and the Muslim Brotherhood he represents – plans to keep post-revolution Egypt firmly within the U.S. orbit.

“The chaotic domestic circumstances Egypt now faces, economic and political, are hindering the country’s new leadership from taking any steps towards changing Mubarak-era foreign policies,” he said, “especially regarding such major players as the U.S., Israel, the Gulf States and Iran.”

Idris added: “That’s why Egypt is maintaining, for the time being at least, its cold peace with Israel; its longstanding ‘strategic partnership’ with Washington; its strong ties with the Gulf States; and the suspension of its relations with Tehran.”

Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Feb 17 2013 (IPS)

Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders.

“The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage,” Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, “may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections.”

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

“Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry,” he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. “The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies.”

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

“I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate,” said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as “unscientific,” Kamel told IPS: “The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands.”

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, “it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament,” said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). “Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’.”

Mustafa added: “The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’.”

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was “more than ready” to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to “complete judicial and international oversight” and the Brotherhood “reveals all the sources of its campaign funding.”

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

“Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas,” said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. “But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence.”

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, “both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised.”

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. “The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains.”

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. “But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority,” he said.

“And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation,” Rabie added, “it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box.”

Protesters battle police in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the second anniversary of Egypt’s January 25 revolution. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jan 29 2013 (IPS)

Concerns are mounting over Egypt’s future after the outbreaks of violence that marked the second anniversary of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution. Massive anti-government rallies led to ongoing clashes between protesters and security forces that have left at least 40 people dead. Cities along Egypt’s Suez Canal faced a government-declared state of emergency.

“The revolutionary fervour that erupted on Friday in ten out of Egypt’s 27 provinces has not been seen since the uprising two years ago,” Ahmed Maher, general coordinator of Egypt’s 6 April youth movement, which participated in the anti-government demonstrations, told IPS.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary, revolutionary, liberal and leftist parties and groups called on Egyptians to mark the occasion with nationwide protests against President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from which he hails. Hundreds of thousands answered the call on Friday, joining marches and rallies in Cairo, Alexandria and other major urban centres.

Protesters’ demands included the amendment of Egypt’s newly approved constitution, prosecution of anyone implicated in killing protesters, and guarantees that upcoming parliamentary polls – expected in April – would be conducted transparently. Protesters also voiced opposition to the perceived ‘Brotherhoodisation’ of state institutions.

Although protest organisers had called for “peaceful rallies” and “the avoidance of violence,” this was not to be the case.

Saad al-Kitatni, president of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), blamed opposition political forces for the escalating violence. “The political forces that called for these rallies, of which they appear to have lost control, are responsible for the bloodshed,” he declared via Twitter.

Opposition figures, for their part, were quick to blame the crisis on President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. “Morsi, his administration and the FJP are all responsible for the current violence,” said 6 April’s Maher. “By ignoring the demands of the opposition, Morsi is behaving just like Mubarak.”

The Muslim Brotherhood condemned the violence. “Egypt’s January 25 Revolution was peaceful in nature,” the group stated. “But yesterday’s demonstrations included attacks by armies of thugs on police, state institutions and private property.”

The Brotherhood blamed Egypt’s private media, much of which is owned by influential businessmen known for their antipathies towards the Islamist group, for “inciting the public against Egypt’s elected government.” It went on to assert that violence had been planned in advance by “elements seeking to derail the course of the revolution.”

The group also condemned opposition groups for condoning the violence. “It is unacceptable that those demanding ‘justice for the martyrs of the revolution’ engage in actions that lead to more people dying,” the statement read.

The situation became even more explosive on Saturday morning when a court sentenced 21 men from Port Said to death. The men had been charged with responsibility for last February’s Port Said stadium disaster in which scores of Egyptian football fans were killed.

Upon announcement of the sentences, clashes erupted in Port Said between police and families of the condemned men. At least 30 were killed in the ensuing violence, including some security personnel. Soon afterwards, the military began deploying in and around the city of Port Said.

On the same day, the National Salvation Front (NSF) – Egypt’s main opposition umbrella group – upped the ante, threatening to boycott upcoming parliamentary polls if President Morsi failed to meet a shortlist of demands. These include immediate constitutional changes, replacement of the current government with a ‘national salvation’ government, and the dismissal of Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general Talaat Ibrahim.

If these demands weren’t immediately met, the NSF said, it would stage further demonstrations this week to call for the re-activation of Egypt’s previous 1971 constitution (albeit with some modifications), and snap presidential elections.

According to Maher, Morsi’s only way out of the current crisis is to “form a new government drawn from various political forces and constitution-amending committee comprised of scholars; dissolve the Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt’s parliament currently endowed with legislative powers); and accept the resignation of the prosecutor-general.

“If he fails to do this, we will escalate our demands,” he added, in a veiled reference to possible calls for Morsi himself – elected only seven months ago – to step down.

FJP spokesman Murad Ali rejected such ultimatums. “The opposition has the right to demonstrate – peacefully – anywhere it wants to,” he told IPS. “But no political group has the right to demand the democratically elected president’s ouster, while the use violence is of course a red line.” (END)

Tahrir Square in Cairo is now witnessing protests against Egypt’s new constitution. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jan 27 2013 (IPS)

Hundreds of thousands hit the streets countrywide on and after the second anniversary of Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising Jan. 25 to protest the policies of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from which he hails. A chief demand was the abrogation – or modification at least – of Egypt’s newly-approved constitution.

“The amendment of the new constitution is one of the primary demands of the people and parties taking part in anniversary rallies,” Magdi Sherif, head of the centrist Guardians of the Revolution Party told IPS from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood must heed the voice of the opposition.”

Egypt’s new national charter was approved last month in a contentious popular referendum – although not by the wide margin its mostly Islamist authors had hoped for. Despite its tepid reception by voters, only 64 percent of whom voted in favour, the new constitution formally went into effect immediately following the referendum.

According to Egypt’s secular opposition, the charter is deeply flawed. The six-month drafting process that preceded the referendum was dogged by controversy, culminating in the last-minute withdrawal of most non-Islamist members of the 100-member drafting committee.

Critics say the document fails to guarantee press freedom and free expression and concentrates too much power in the hands of the presidency. Nor, they say, does the charter adequately safeguard judicial independence or do away with Egypt’s longstanding practice of trying civilians in military courts.

“The new constitution employs very broadly-defined terms that could lead to restrictions on freedoms and the violation of basic rights,” Gaber Gad Nassar, constitutional law professor at Cairo University told IPS. “It also contains several articles that could theoretically allow the president to assume dictatorial powers.

“By broadening presidential authority, the charter allows the executive to dominate other branches of government,” Nassar added. He pointed to one article in particular granting the president the right to appoint members of Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC).

Last summer, the HCC ruled Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliament ‘unconstitutional’ on a technicality. The ruling led to the dissolution of the assembly – three quarters of which had been held by Islamist parties, chief among them the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to the Brotherhood and Morsi supporters, the HCC remains stocked with judges appointed by – and therefore loyal to – the ousted Mubarak regime.

Nassar also blasted the new constitution for allowing journalists to be arrested for certain press-related offences, and for allowing civilians to be tried by military tribunals if they are charged with “violations against Egypt’s armed forces.”

In a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, Nassar (who says he is unaffiliated with any political parties or groups) added: “Those currently governing the country are carrying out their own agenda. Their lack of vision is deepening the political divide and they refuse to heed the opposition’s objections to the new constitution.”

Yet Murad Ali, official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), insists that the FJP is – despite accusations to the contrary – “entirely prepared to hear and respond to other political forces’ reservations about certain constitutional articles.”

According to Ali, opposition forces currently in talks with the presidency are demanding the amendment of 15 articles. “And while some of the requested changes are reasonable, others are not,” he said.

For example, he said, certain political forces were demanding the elimination of an article barring former leading members of Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party from political participation. “But this is unreasonable,” Ali asserted. “Neither the Egyptian people nor the FJP will allow former NDP bigwigs to re-enter politics.”

Ali went on to say that the opposition had exaggerated the “expanded powers” allegedly given the president in the new constitution. “A careful reading of the charter will reveal that presidential authority has actually been reduced from the previous 1971 constitution.”

He added, however, that all other contentious constitutional articles – such as those dealing with personal freedoms, judicial independence and presidential oversight – “remain open to debate with other political forces with a view to reaching a compromise.”

The anti-constitution camp has coalesced around the National Salvation Front (NSF) led by former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei and presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi. In its opposition to Morsi, the Brotherhood and the new constitution, the NSF has produced strange bedfellows, uniting liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups with supporters of the former regime.

On Monday (Jan. 21), the presidency invited opposition representatives to a ‘national dialogue’ to discuss their proposals for constitutional amendments. Although shunned by the NSF, the dialogue was attended by representatives of certain opposition parties, civil society and Egypt’s three main Christian churches (Coptic Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical).

Two days later, church representatives – along with those of some political parties – withdrew from the initiative, saying discussions had been “unproductive” and had “failed to yield the desired results.”

For Nassar, the walkout came as no surprise.

“Why should they stay? Conclusions reached by the so-called dialogue committee aren’t binding,” he said. The Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt’s parliament (currently endowed with legislative authority), he noted, “isn’t obliged to implement the committee’s recommendations.”

Nassar added: “Popular pressure and demonstrations are the only means of obtaining a balanced, democratic constitution that reflects the will of the people and the goals of the revolution.”

The FJP’s Ali criticised those who withdrew from the dialogue session, describing the move as “dictatorship by the minority.”

“Parties and groups that represent the 36 percent of the public that voted against the constitution cannot simply walk out when all their demands aren’t met,” he said. “Dialogue is intended to lead to compromise; it’s not a matter of one side making all-or-nothing demands of the other.

“The majority of Egyptian voters approved the national charter. And the choice of the majority must be accepted.”

Morsi, for his part, has repeatedly promised to reopen debate on proposed constitutional amendments in the first session of parliament’s lower house, following legislative elections expected some time in April. The offer, however, appears to have been forgotten in the violence and chaos witnessed on the revolution’s second anniversary. (END)

Egyptian protesters demonstrate against President Mursi and the new draft constitution outside the presidential palace in Cairo. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Dec 13 2012 (IPS)

This Saturday, Egyptians will head to the polls to vote on a controversial draft constitution. The referendum has divided this nation – still pulsing with the revolutionary fervour that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 – with most Islamist parties and groups supporting the proposed national charter, while liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups, in addition to Egypt’s sizable pro-Mubarak demographic, are opposed to it.

“The crisis over Egypt’s post-revolution constitution has led to unprecedented degrees of polarisation, which has already (sparked) violence,” prominent political analyst Tawfiq Ghanem told IPS. “It’s very precarious. Both camps are able to mobilise vast numbers, which has allowed both sides to claim popular legitimacy.”

Tuesday saw competing mass rallies in Cairo: one in support of the draft constitution, and another, held outside the presidential palace, at which protesters demanded the referendum be postponed. Both demonstrations drew tens of thousands.

Opponents of the proposed constitution say the document doesn’t do enough to curb presidential powers and guarantee personal freedoms. They also complain that the 100-member constituent assembly that drafted the charter was dominated by Islamist-leaning members.

“Egypt’s earlier (1971) constitution was much better than the document that will be put to a vote this Saturday,” Gaber Gad Nassar, constitutional law professor and former constituent assembly member, told IPS. “The draft charter fails to reflect the demands of last year’s popular uprising, which ended 30 years of corruption and dictatorship” under the now-deposed president Hosni Mubarak.

Last month, Nassar – along with most other non-Islamist members – quit the assembly to object to what they saw as ‘Islamist domination’ of the charter-drafting body. Seemingly unfazed, remaining members – roughly two thirds of the assembly – approved the final draft constitution following a 20-hour marathon session.

“I left the assembly to protest draft articles concerning the president’s powers, as well as last-minute changes made to articles relating to civil liberties,” said Nassar. “I also objected to how the Islamist members who dominated the assembly had ignored proposals put forward by non-Islamist members.”

Magdi Hussein, a prominent Islamist-leaning political analyst, defends the draft, saying that non-Islamist members withdrew en masse, just before a final assembly vote on the document, in order to derail the drafting process.

“Besides, there can never be total consensus on any constitution anywhere in the world,” Hussein told IPS. “A certain degree of dissent is inevitable.”

“The only way out of the current crisis (that will also) realise the goals of last year’s revolution – namely, democratic transition – is to put the proposed constitution to a popular vote,” he added. “The opposition is welcome to vote ‘no’ if it wants to.”

If more than half of Egypt’s registered voters vote ‘yes,’ fresh parliamentary elections will be held within 60 days. If the draft is rejected, a new constituent assembly will be drawn up – members of which will be selected via direct elections – and tasked with drafting a brand new charter within six months.

On Dec. 8, President Mohamed Mursi – who, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails, supports the draft charter – called on the opposition to list the draft articles they found objectionable. He went on to promise that said articles would be raised for discussion in the next parliament’s opening session.

On the same day, Mursi – despite opposition demands that the referendum be delayed – issued a presidential decree stating that the poll would go ahead as scheduled. The decree replaced an earlier, highly controversial Nov. 21 decree that had made the president’s decisions impervious to judicial challenge.

It was this latter decree that triggered the latest crisis, bringing hundreds of thousands onto the streets nationwide to protest the president’s bold move against the judiciary.

Mursi’s critics portrayed the decree, which also protected the constituent assembly and Shura Council (the parliament’s upper house) from dissolution by court order, as ‘dictatorial’ and a ‘naked power-grab.’

The president’s supporters, however, saw the move as a means of reigning in a hostile judiciary that had served the Mubarak regime, especially Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC).

Supporters of President Mursi rally outside Cairo Universtiy. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

The HCC played a pivotal role in the dissolution this summer of Egypt’s freely-elected People’s Assembly (parliament’s lower house), roughly three quarters of which had been won by Islamist candidates. It was an HCC verdict deeming the elected assembly ‘unconstitutional’ (based on a legal technicality) that allowed Egypt’s then-ruling Supreme Military Council to order its dissolution.

“Mursi and his supporters view the judiciary, especially the HCC, as trying to undermine the president’s decisions at every turn and threatening democratically-elected bodies with dissolution,” said Ghanem, adding that the controversial ‘November 21’ decree “was intended to pre-empt anticipated HCC rulings against the constituent assembly and Shura Council”.

The anti-constitution camp, meanwhile, has coalesced around a recently-formed National Salvation Front (NSF), led by prominent reform campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei and former presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi.

This camp has produced unexpected bedfellows, uniting liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups with supporters of the ousted Mubarak regime.

“Ironically, the revolutionaries who got rid of Mubarak are now supported by members of his old party,” ElBaradei himself conceded in a Dec. 3 editorial in the Financial Times.

Mursi supporters, for their part, accuse the NSF of spearheading a “coup” against the elected president’s democratic legitimacy. They see Moussa and Sabbahi as failed presidential contenders who lost to Mursi in fair elections this summer and who now simply want to trip up Egypt’s democratic transition.

“Egypt’s liberal, secular elite has openly thrown in its lot with remnants of the Mubarak regime against Egypt’s democratically-elected president in hopes of derailing the formation of functioning state institutions,” said Hussein. He described the NSF as “counter-revolutionary.”

According to Hussein, the true aim of the opposition’s recent mobilisation against the constitutional poll – which has moved its main protest venue from Tahrir Square to the presidential palace – is nothing less than Mursi’s ouster.

“The political opposition doesn’t want reconciliation,” he said. “They are using the current constitutional crisis to attempt to unseat the elected president.”

The issue has already led to several incidents of violence. At least ten people were killed last week in clashes between supporters and opponents of the president, after the latter surrounded the presidential palace in Cairo.

At around the same time, unknown assailants attacked several of the Muslim Brotherhood’s provincial offices as well as Mursi’s private residence.

“Everyone has the right to peaceful protest to express their views,” said Hussein. “But threatening state institutions, including the presidential palace itself, is totally unacceptable and will simply lead to further chaos and bloodshed.”

He added: “Opposition to the policies of Egypt’s democratically-elected head of state should be settled at the ballot box, be they presidential and parliamentary polls or the upcoming constitutional referendum.”

(END)

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi issued a controversial decree last week that temporarily puts his decisions beyond judicial challenge. While critics decry the move as a blatant power grab, the presidency says it was necessary to safeguard Egypt’s post-revolution democratic transition.

Mursi’s decree, according to a statement from the presidency on Sunday, “was not meant to consolidate power, but rather to devolve it to a democratically-elected parliament and pre-empt attempts to undermine or dissolve two democratically-elected bodies (the Shura Council and the Constituent Assembly).”

The declaration calls for the retrial of police and Mubarak-era officials – including the ousted president himself – implicated in the killing of protesters during and after last year’s popular uprising. Given a recent spate of controversial police acquittals, this was welcomed by political forces across the board.

It was the items that followed that triggered a political firestorm.

The declaration goes on to make all presidential decisions “final and binding” until a new constitution is approved and parliamentary polls are held in some six months’ time. It also makes two government bodies – the Shura Council (the upper, consultative house of Egypt’s parliament) and the Constituent Assembly (tasked with drafting a new constitution) impervious to judicial rulings calling for their dissolution.

Mursi’s decree gives the Constituent Assembly an additional two months to finish drafting a national charter to be put before a popular referendum early next year. The constitution-drafting body has been dogged by controversy since its inception earlier this year, with secularist members opposed to the assembly’s Islamist majority.

The declaration gives the president the right to appoint a new prosecutor-general, which he did, replacing Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud – whose dismissal had been a longstanding revolutionary demand – with Judge Talaat Abdullah.

Judicial authorities along with Egypt’s liberal and leftist forces labelled the president “Egypt’s new pharaoh” and called his decree “dictatorial.” The Supreme Judicial Council described the move as an “unprecedented attack on judicial independence.”

In mid-June, on the eve of a hotly-contested presidential runoff, Egypt’s then ruling Supreme Military Council ordered dissolution of parliament’s lower house in which Islamist parties – particularly the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party – had together won a sizable majority. The order followed a ruling by Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC) deeming the law regulating last year’s parliamentary polls unconstitutional.

In early July, only one week after becoming Egypt’s first freely elected head of state, Mursi in a direct challenge to the judiciary issued an executive decree calling on parliament’s dissolved lower house to reconvene. The president, however, quickly backed down after the HCC countermanded his decree.

Mursi struck back in August, dismissing Egypt’s ruling generals and thus ending the country’s military-administered transitional phase, and assuming legislative authority from the departing military council.

In mid-October, after the acquittal of several ex-regime officials charged with involvement in killing protesters, Mursi tried – and failed – to have Prosecutor-General Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud removed from his post. Mahmoud, appointed by Mubarak in 1996, has until now survived longstanding revolutionary demands to “purge” the judiciary of Mubarak-era officials.

On Friday, tens of thousands of demonstrators, supported by most non-Islamist political parties and groups, converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest the president’s declaration. Similar numbers turned out at the presidential palace in a show of support for Mursi’s decision.

Addressing the crowds, Mursi stressed his respect for Egypt’s judicial institutions but asserted that a handful of high-placed judicial figures “still loyal to the former regime” were using their influence to stall transition to a functioning democracy.

Mursi frequently stressed the need for “stability” – and not without some cause.

Within the last two weeks, Egypt has faced challenges on both the foreign and domestic fronts, dealing with a week-long Israeli assault on the next-door Gaza Strip – where it successfully brokered a ceasefire – and ongoing street fights in Cairo between security forces and activists.

According to prominent Egyptian political analyst Tawfiq Ghanem, both sides in the dispute have valid concerns.

“There is a legitimate fear among the public that the presidency is accruing too much power; his critics see him assuming complete authority and freeing himself of judicial oversight,” Ghanem told IPS. “Mursi’s supporters, meanwhile, view the judiciary – especially the HCC – as unfairly blocking Mursi’s decisions and dissolving elected government bodies.”

Ghanem believes Mursi issued the decree to pre-empt the possible dissolution of the Shura Council and Constituent Assembly by the HCC, which is slated to rule on the constitutionality of both Islamist-led bodies early next month.

The HCC, Ghanem pointed out, “began taking sides in the fray this summer when it declared parliament’s newly-elected lower house unconstitutional and recommended the assembly’s dissolution.” Since then, he added, the court has “taken on an unprecedented political role.”

Nevertheless, Ghanem said, Mursi should have “coordinated the move with other political forces….he should also do more to reassure a wary public that he won’t use his considerable albeit temporary powers against civil liberties.”

Two separate mass demonstrations in Cairo are expected on Tuesday by supporters and opponents of the president’s controversial decree, with many fearing possible clashes between the two rival camps. On Sunday night, a young Muslim Brotherhood member was killed after unidentified assailants attacked an FJP office in Egypt’s Nile Delta.

A Palestinian family on the street in Beit Lahia in north Gaza. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Nov 23 2012 (IPS)

The reaction of post-revolution Egypt to Israel’s weeklong onslaught on the next-door Gaza Strip – brought to a halt temporarily at least by a Wednesday night ceasefire – has contrasted sharply with the former regime’s callous approach to the besieged coastal enclave.

“The Mubarak regime unashamedly participated in Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip, never missing an opportunity to pressure Hamas,” Tarek Fahmi, Israel affairs expert at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies told IPS. “Egypt’s new leadership, by contrast, has expressed its unconditional support for Hamas and the people of Gaza, and actively tried to lift the siege.”

President Mohamed Mursi became Egypt’s first freely elected head of state this summer, some 16 months after the ouster of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak. Mursi hails from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which the Palestinian resistance faction Hamas – which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007 – is an ideological offshoot.

Unlike his predecessor, and most Western leaders, Egypt’s new president was quick to denounce the latest round of Israeli bloodletting. In his weekly Friday sermon on Nov. 16, Mursi vowed that Egypt would not leave the Gaza Strip “on its own” to face Israel’s “shameless aggression.”

In a clear reference to post-revolution foreign policy changes, he went on to assert: “Egypt today is very different than the Egypt of yesterday.”

The latest violence was triggered by Israel’s assassination on Nov. 14 of a top Hamas commander, to which Gaza-based resistance groups responded by firing salvoes of rockets. The subsequent week of unremitting Israeli bombardments – from air, land and sea – left more than 150 Palestinians dead, the vast majority civilians, and hundreds more seriously injured.

In the same period, five Israelis were killed by rocket fire from Gaza. Several more were reported injured.

Following announcement of the ceasefire, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal expressed gratitude to Mursi for Egypt’s role in mediating an end to the violence. He also thanked the Egyptian president for the latter’s “decisions and approach to Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza.”

Since the crisis first began, Egypt’s reaction has not been confined to strongly worded statements.

On the first day of the onslaught, Cairo announced the withdrawal of its ambassador to Israel, while Mursi called on the UN Security Council and the Cairo-based Arab League to hold emergency meetings. Two days later, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil paid a brief visit to the beleaguered territory in a show of solidarity.

Egypt also opened the Rafah border crossing, the strip’s only link to the outside world (since its 2005 ‘unilateral withdrawal’ from the territory, Israel has kept its border with the strip hermetically sealed). Passengers and cargo, including desperately needed medical supplies, are now flowing from Egypt into the strip, while injured Palestinians are being brought into Egypt for medical treatment.

According to Fahmi, the reaction of Egypt’s new Islamist leadership to the latest crisis in Gaza corresponds to Mursi’s – and by extension the Muslim Brotherhood’s – stated positions on the perennial Arab-Israel conflict.

“Mursi’s reaction is in line with his campaign platform and his post-election statements on the issue,” Fahmi explained, “in which he said that Egypt under his leadership would directly support the Palestinian people against Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and work to secure Palestinian national aspirations.”

The Egyptian response to the current crisis contrasted starkly with the Mubarak regime’s reaction to Israel’s 2008/09 ‘Cast Lead’ offensive. Over the course of that three-week-long onslaught almost four years ago, in which Israel used internationally banned weapons, some 1,500 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed and thousands more injured.

Despite the ferocity of the Cast Lead assault, Mubarak’s Egypt had kept the Rafah border crossing tightly sealed. Not even Palestinians suffering life-threatening injuries had been allowed into Egypt for medical treatment.

“At the behest of the U.S. and Israel, Mubarak completed the Zionist blockade of the strip – even at the height of the Cast Lead massacre – in hopes of destroying Hamas,” Magdi Hussein, political analyst and former head of Egypt’s Islamist-leaning Labour Party told IPS.

“Mursi, by contrast, openly supports the resistance in Gaza and began taking steps to open the border even before the latest aggression,” added Hussein, who was jailed for two years under Mubarak for crossing into the strip without permission during Israel’s 2008/09 assault.

Notably, Mursi has also shifted Egyptian support from the Palestinian Fatah movement, which leads the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, to Hamas in Gaza.

“Egypt now supports Hamas, to which the Brotherhood is affiliated ideologically and which espouses a strategy of armed resistance,” said Fahmi. “The Mubarak regime had supported Hamas’s bitter rival Fatah, which had insisted on holding fruitless ‘peace talks’ with Israel that utterly failed to improve the Palestinians’ position.”

Egyptian support for the people of Gaza – and the resistance based there – has hardly been confined to official circles.

On Sunday, a convoy including hundreds of Egyptian activists of all political stripes briefly visited the strip to express solidarity with their beleaguered Palestinian brethren. Two days earlier, pro-Gaza rallies held across Egypt drew tens of thousands, while Egyptian political groups from across the spectrum are calling for an even bigger mass protest this Friday.

But while Egypt’s Gaza policy has changed fundamentally since last year’s revolution, that of the international community has apparently not. As was the case during Israel’s Cast Lead assault four years ago, the UN Security Council failed to issue a resolution calling for an end to hostilities.

On Tuesday (Nov. 20), one day before the ceasefire announcement, the U.S. blocked a UN Security Council statement condemning the escalating violence.

“Some European capitals appear more sympathetic to Hamas and Gaza this time around,” said Fahmi. “Washington’s support for Israel, however, as during Cast Lead, appears to be total.” (END)

The election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi to the presidency this summer was followed by a flurry of conjecture that the restoration of Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic relations – frozen since 1979 – was in the offing. Yet despite some initial indications to this effect, local analysts now say such speculation appears to have been premature.

“Egypt-Iran relations have certainly warmed since Morsi’s assumption of the presidency,” Mohamed Saeed Idris, expert in Iranian affairs at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told IPS. “But in light of certain factors, not least of which is Egypt’s recent declaration of support for the opposition in Syria, the resumption of ties now appears unlikely in the short term.”

Over the last decade, Iran has repeatedly expressed its desire to restore ties with Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country. “If the Egyptian government was willing, we would open an embassy in Cairo the same day,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously declared in 2007.

Under the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt – taking its cue from Washington – consistently rebuffed the Iranian overtures, choosing instead to see the Islamic republic as a “threat” to regional security. But following Morsi’s assumption of the presidency in June, many analysts had predicted that the country’s new Islamist head of state would move quickly to restore ties with Iran.

In hope of sweetening the deal, meanwhile, Iranian officials had stressed their readiness to pump significant Iranian investment into Egypt’s economy and work on boosting bilateral trade if diplomatic relations were restored.

Although formal ties remain suspended until now, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi recently expressed his “optimism” regarding the future of Egypt-Iran relations, stressing that they were “heading for the better.”

At a Sep. 19 press conference with his Egyptian, Turkish and Saudi counterparts, he said that economic relations with Egypt were “progressing well,” pointing out that the volume of bilateral trade had doubled in recent months. “This is a sign that the future of bilateral relations will be better,” the Iranian minister declared.

Morsi broke fresh ground in late August when he visited Tehran – the first Egyptian head of state to do so in more than three decades – for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), where he formally handed over the movement’s rotating presidency to Iranian counterpart Ahmedinejad.

In an unprecedented show of warmth, Morsi referred to Ahmedinejad as “my dear brother,” and to Iran as “the sister Islamic republic of Iran.”

But while Morsi’s Tehran trip may have served to break the ice, Idris says the visit “was mostly for reasons of protocol; to formally pass the NAM presidency from Egypt to Iran.”

Idris, who served as head of the Arab affairs committee in Egypt’s last (now-disbanded) parliament, went on to explain that, despite Tehran’s strong desire to restore diplomatic ties, there were both “internal and external obstacles” currently preventing Egypt from doing so.

“Externally, such a move would adversely impact Egypt’s relations with the Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, whose animosity towards Iran is well known,” said Idris. “What’s more, the Egyptian government is currently negotiating a hefty loan package from the IMF, which the U.S. would likely block in the event that Cairo restored relations with Tehran.”

On the domestic front, he added, the resumption of ties with Iran “would alienate Egypt’s nascent Salafist parties, which oppose normalising relations with a Shiite power that they believe wants to promote Shiite ideology in Sunni-Muslim Egypt.”

Egypt’s Salafist parties, established in the wake of the revolution early last year and which espouse an ultraconservative brand of Islam, won almost a quarter of the seats in the People’s Assembly (the lower house of parliament) in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak legislative elections.

Yet perhaps the most serious obstacle to the speedy restoration of Egypt-Iran ties, say analysts, is Cairo’s position – articulated by Morsi on more than one occasion – on the ongoing crisis in Syria.

While speaking at the NAM summit in Tehran, Morsi no doubt irked his Iranian hosts by coming out firmly on the side of Syria’s armed insurgency. Declaring that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had “lost its legitimacy,” he went so far as to compare the Damascus regime with Israel’s perennial occupation of Palestine.

While Morsi has repeatedly ruled out foreign military involvement in Syria, he nevertheless went on to assert that the crisis could only be resolved through “effective intervention” from outside.

Tehran, which counts Syria as its only regional ally in its ongoing confrontation with the U.S.-led Western powers, has continued to support the Damascus regime against Syria’s armed – and increasingly violent – opposition.

“Tehran’s continued support for al-Assad has become the latest stumbling-block before Egypt-Iran rapprochement,” said Idris. “The resumption of ties with Iran now appears to be conditioned on the latter forsaking its support for Damascus.”

Only days before Morsi spoke in Tehran, a spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – from which the Egyptian president hails – stated: “The normalisation of relations with Iran is impossible as long as Iran continues to support the Assad regime. Egypt cannot restore ties with Iran at the expense of the Syrian people and the security of the Gulf.”

Diplomatic ties between the two countries were first severed in 1979, in the immediate wake of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, after former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David peace agreement with Israel. Cairo further alienated the nascent Islamic Republic later the same year by granting political asylum to deposed shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Relations became downright hostile during the 1980s, when Egypt openly supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against revolutionary Iran in the eight-year war of attrition between the two countries. Today, Cairo remains the only Arab capital not to have official diplomatic relations with Tehran.

“The formal restoration of ties cannot be ruled out in the medium term,” asserted Idris. “But in light of ongoing regional developments, such a step by Egypt is highly unlikely in the immediate future.”

The wave of unrest in the Middle East caused by blasphemous depictions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad last month – and events near the U.S. embassy in Cairo in particular – does not appear to have impaired Egypt’s longstanding ‘strategic partnership’ with Washington, say local analysts.

“Recent demonstrations and clashes near the U.S. embassy, and the reaction of Egypt’s new Islamist leadership to those events, has not led to a dramatic shift in Egypt-U.S. relations as had been initially feared,” Tarek Fahmi, political science professor at Cairo University told IPS.

“The relationship is a very deep one and has many dimensions: political, economic, military and otherwise,” Fahmi added. “It won’t be seriously impacted by embassy rallies or one-off statements by officials from either side.”

On Sep. 11, thousands of Egyptian protesters converged on the U.S. embassy in Cairo following the appearance online of a short film mocking Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. At one point, angry demonstrators breached the embassy grounds from which they tore down an American flag.

On the same day, the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed along with three colleagues during a similar anti-film demonstration outside the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

In Cairo, no members of the U.S. embassy staff were hurt – or threatened with harm – by protesters. Nevertheless, for the next three days, Egyptian demonstrators skirmished with security forces in the area around the embassy, adjacent to Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

On Sep. 12, in a move that many saw as a possible sign of shifting regional policy, U.S. President Barack Obama contentiously described Egypt as neither ally nor enemy.

“I don’t think that we would consider them (Egypt) an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy…We are going to have to see how they respond to this incident, how they respond to, for example, maintaining the peace treaty with Israel,” Obama said in a televised interview.

The following day, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – from which Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi hails – issued a statement urging demonstrators to “exercise self-restraint”, and said protection of foreign diplomatic missions in Egypt is “both an Islamic and legal obligation.”

The party went on to voice “total rejection” of any aggression against the U.S. embassy or its staff, while strongly condemning the violence against U.S. diplomats in next door Libya.

While some U.S. officials criticised the FJP for issuing its statement a full two days after the protests began, leading party member Hamdi Hassan defended the move.

“From the outset, the government immediately issued orders forbidding violence against the U.S. embassy,” Hassan told IPS. “The Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, also urged the government to pre-empt any aggression against diplomatic missions.”

He went on to blame the embassy clashes on “counter-revolutionary forces that continue to work behind the scenes in Egypt.” These forces, he asserted, “never miss an opportunity to turn peaceful rallies into violent confrontations with the aim of destabilising the country and causing problems for Egypt’s new democratically elected leadership.”

Counter-revolutionary elements, Hassan added, which he said include figures loyal to the former regime, “want to tarnish the image of Egypt’s revolution by making it look like an anti-Western phenomenon, which it is not.” He went on to point out that peaceful anti-film protesters had largely remained in Tahrir Square, “while those clashing with security forces outside the nearby embassy were incited to do so by as-yet-unidentified instigators.”

On Sep. 16, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil stated that several of those arrested during the clashes had confessed to having received money for attacking security forces deployed outside the embassy. Investigations aimed at identifying the instigators, he said, were “ongoing”.

Yet, despite U.S. criticism about the Egyptian government’s handling of the crisis, Fahmi says both countries remain keen to maintain solid bilateral relations.

“Regardless of the recent leadership change in Cairo, Washington still sees Egypt as its principle regional ally,” he said. “The U.S. does not want to see Egypt slip out of its sphere of influence. It would be an enormous blow to U.S. strategic interests in the region if Egypt were to ally itself with other international powers, such as Russia or China. ”

Egypt, for its part, Fahmi added, would be hard pressed to forsake its longstanding military-to-military cooperation with the U.S. – now more than three decades old – since the Egyptian armed forces remain “heavily dependant” on U.S. military hardware. In the event of a serious rupture in relations, he said, “Egypt would be forced to replace its entire military inventory.”

One week after the U.S. embassy debacle, following the publication of offensive depictions of Islam’s prophet in a popular French magazine, Egypt’s main Islamist parties – including the FJP – rejected calls to protest outside the French embassy in Cairo, opting instead to initiate legal action against the publishers of the offensive images.

“Islamist forces learned from their earlier mistake at the U.S. embassy,” said Hassan. “With the knowledge that counter-revolutionary elements are waiting for any opportunity to tarnish the image of Islam and Muslims in the eyes of the West, we’re currently studying alternative means of expressing our opposition besides street rallies and demonstrations.”

According to Fahmi, Washington and Cairo each drew important lessons from the episode.

“The Morsi administration learned that it must take a clear position vis-à-vis Israel and the (Egypt-Israel) Camp David peace treaty, because Egypt-U.S. relations are largely founded on the agreement,” he said.

While Morsi has frequently reiterated Egypt’s commitment to all international treaties to which it is signatory, he has also hinted that the terms of Camp David – which tightly restrict Egypt’s ability to make military deployments in the Sinai Peninsula – could eventually be put before a popular referendum.

Washington, for its part, Fahmi said, “has learned that if it wants to communicate with Egypt, it must deal with the new president, the government and a host of post-revolution political forces.” He added: “The time is over when the U.S. simply issued directives to (ousted president Hosni) Mubarak, who would implement them regardless of the Egyptian popular will.”

In a sign that relations had weathered the storm, Obama reportedly sent a letter to his Egyptian counterpart on Sep. 23 thanking him for securing the U.S. embassy and stressing his desire to maintain Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Cairo.

Coptic Christians demonstrate in Cairo's Tahrir Square following last October's 'Maspero massacre' in which dozens of Copts were killed. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Walter García, Adam Morrow, and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Sep 20 2012 (IPS)

Many of Egypt’s Coptic Christians met the recent assumption of the presidency by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi with trepidation, even panic – some even made plans to leave the country. Almost three month’s into Morsi’s term, these fears, say some experts, appear largely unfounded.

“Copts were mortified when Morsi won. It was as if the sky had fallen,” Youssef Sidhoum, editor-in-chief of Coptic weekly Al-Watan and expert in Coptic affairs, told IPS. “But such fears appear be to be overblown. Since assuming the presidency, Morsi hasn’t done anything – at least until now – to justify such alarmism.”

The largest concentration of Christians in the Middle East, Egypt’s Coptic community is thought to account for about ten percent of the country’s population, which currently stands at some 91 million. The rest of the Egyptian population is almost entirely Sunni Muslim.

In an effort to reach out to Egypt’s wary Christian minority, Morsi, shortly after assuming the presidency, met with representatives from all of Egypt’s churches. Speaking to Coptic, Catholic and Evangelical leaders, he stressed his intention to serve as a “president to all Egyptians” – in what has become a common refrain – regardless of religion or political orientation.

Such moves, however, have been greeted with scepticism on the part of some Copts, who question the new president’s sincerity.

“I don’t trust them,” Joseph, a 47-year-old Coptic resident of Cairo, said of the Brotherhood, preferring not to give his last name. “Morsi’s nice words to the Christian community are only cosmetic. We know that the Brotherhood wants to Islamise the country and Egyptian society.

“They say they’ll respect Christians’ rights, but they’ll end up enforcing strict dress codes – like in Iran – and banning alcohol, thus destroying Egypt’s tourism industry,” added Joseph, who is currently mulling emigration to New Zealand.

Sidhoum, however, sees such attitudes as unnecessarily alarmist.

“We’ve now had a Muslim Brotherhood presidency for three months, and up until this point we’ve been given no reason to fear for our community’s well-being,” said Sidhoum. “We ought to give Morsi a chance; see what he does before drawing conclusions.”

In line with promises made before June’s presidential runoff (in which Morsi defeated Mubarak-era premier Ahmed Shafiq by a slim margin), Egypt’s first civilian president has not issued any decrees affecting Egyptian social norms, such as dress codes, alcohol sales, or so-called ‘morality’ policing.

Early this month, the presidency expressed its annoyance when the Netherlands formally began accepting applications for political asylum from Egyptian Coptic Christians based on claims of alleged ‘religious persecution’.

“It is not acceptable under any circumstances for any foreign parties to intervene in this matter (Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt),” presidential spokesman Yasser Ali declared at a press conference on Sep. 9. “This is an entirely Egyptian affair in which we will not accept any outside interference.”

The spokesman added: “The position of the presidency is clear on this issue – all Egyptians have the same rights and responsibilities vis-à-vis the state. The presidency does not draw any distinctions between Egyptians, Muslim or Christian.”

Yet despite these sentiments, many Coptic Christians point to the sporadic eruptions of sectarian violence that have followed last year’s revolution as proof of their worsening situation.

Last October, during Egypt’s military-administered ‘interim phase,’ dozens of unarmed protesters – most of them Christians – were killed during clashes with security forces in Cairo’s Maspero district. The incident sparked days of angry Coptic demonstrations, in which charges of state-sponsored religious persecution were frequently aired.

More recently, in early August, crowds of angry Muslims in the city of Dahshur south of Cairo destroyed several Coptic-owned shops and homes after a young Muslim man was killed by a Coptic neighbour in a personal quarrel. Calm was eventually restored, however, following the convention of a traditional ‘reconciliation council’ through which the damaged parties were satisfactorily compensated.

Facing the first such flare-up of his presidency, Morsi dismissed the episode’s “sectarian nature”, insisting that what had happened in Dahshur had been an “isolated incident” not reflective of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt.

Sidhoum, for his part, is critical of the traditional mechanisms employed to defuse such sectarian explosions, which, under the Mubarak regime, had become an increasingly frequent phenomenon.

“Incidents like these always end with reconciliation councils and compensation for the Christian victims, but the perpetrators are never penalised,” he said.

Reconciliation councils are the traditional method by which local disputes between clans or families are resolved, especially in rural or desert regions. Family heads and community leaders – along with local clergymen if the dispute has a sectarian dimension – usually take part in such councils, through which a mutually acceptable agreement is negotiated, generally involving compensation to the more injured party.

Such councils are conducted outside the purview of the state, which, in such cases, has been historically inclined to let local tradition take its course.

But according to Sidhoum, this antiquated method of conflict resolution does little to deter such sectarian venting, since it allows the perpetrators of sectarian crimes to go unpunished.

“If the law were applied to whoever participated in sectarian aggression, be they Muslim or Christian, it would serve to re-establish the standing of the state and guarantee coexistence,” he said. “It would go a long way towards ending the phenomenon of sectarianism once and for all.”

Mena Thabet, a Coptic Christian rights activist specialised in Coptic affairs, agreed.

“The Mubarak regime used to actively promote division between Muslims and Christians for its own political interests,” Thabet told IPS. “It allowed sectarian problems to persist by failing to execute the law and bring perpetrators to justice. Had it done so, such incidents would have been much less common.”

Both men also agree that the issue will ultimately depend on the country’s new constitution, currently being drafted by Egypt’s majority-Islamist Constituent Assembly.

“The problems traditionally faced by Egypt’s Christians will be resolved when there’s a constitution that ensures Egypt’s democratic and civil nature,” said Sidhoum. “Such a charter would lead to the passage of laws that don’t draw distinctions between citizens based on race or belief.”

“If the new constitution genuinely guarantees equality for all Egyptians, the political orientation of the president – Brotherhood, Salafist, or whatever – will become irrelevant,” Thabet concurred.

Egypt’s Constituent Assembly is expected to unveil a draft constitution within the next two months, after which the proposed charter will be put before a nationwide referendum for public approval.

Tightly sealed for years under Mubarak, Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza may soon be open for business. Credit: Adam Morrow/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

With the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s first-ever freely elected president, the Gaza file – especially as it pertains to Egypt’s border with the besieged enclave – is fast becoming one of the new president’s first major foreign policy challenges.

“Morsi knows that the Gaza issue is intimately linked to Egypt’s relations with Israel and the U.S.,” Tarek Fahmi, director of the Israel desk at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies told IPS. “He understands well that any unilateral change to the status quo on the Egypt-Gaza border would have serious international repercussions, for which Egypt isn’t currently prepared.”

Therefore, Fahmi added, the new president “is likely to tread very, very cautiously on the issue.”

In May of last year, three months after Mubarak’s ouster, the closure of Egypt’s border with Gaza – first imposed by the Mubarak regime in 2007 – was eased slightly in a nod to post-revolution public pressure. A limited number of passengers from the strip were allowed to pass through the Rafah international border crossing, albeit only during certain hours and on certain days.

The crossing was, however, kept firmly closed to anything resembling commercial traffic. The flow of desperately needed commodities from outside – including foodstuffs, fuel and cement (the latter being necessary to rebuild the strip’s infrastructure, largely destroyed during Israel’s 2008/2009 war on the enclave) – continued to rely on subterranean tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

In the months following last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, the complete opening of the Rafah crossing to all forms of traffic had been one of the political demands voiced by a number of Egyptian revolutionary groups. The country, however, was soon convulsed by domestic political upheaval, which included days-long street battles between the army and protesters, along with hard-fought parliamentary and presidential elections. The festering Gaza issue was relegated to the backburner.

But Morsi’s election in hotly contested June presidential polls appears to have brought the issue back to the fore. In statements made shortly before his election, Morsi, a long-time member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Palestinian resistance group Hamas is a loose affiliate, stated that “the time has come to open the Rafah crossing to traffic 24 hours a day and all year round.”

Recent statements emanating from Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, certainly suggest that a major change at the border is imminent.

On Jul. 13, two week’s after Morsi’s inauguration, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal expressed confidence that, along with “protecting the Gaza Strip from any would-be Israeli aggression,” Egypt’s new president “will open the border and end the commercial siege of the strip.”

On the same day, Ismail Heniya, head of the Hamas-run Gaza government, also voiced that confidence that Egypt under Morsi “would never provide cover for any new (Israeli) aggression on the Gaza Strip,” in a clear reference to the policies of Egypt’s ousted Mubarak regime. Nor would a Morsi-led Egypt, Heniya added, “continue to take part in the siege on Gaza.”

Statements by officials from the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) likewise suggest that the days of the five-year-old border closure are drawing to a close.

“The FJP believes that Israel’s oppressive siege of the Gaza Strip must be eased and that Egypt’s participation (in the siege) must end,” leading FJP member Saad al-Husseini told IPS. “Egypt must take a firm position vis-à-vis Israel in this regard.”

Al-Husseini added that the FJP – which controls roughly half the seats in the lower house of Egypt’s (currently dissolved) parliament – had “no objections to opening the Rafah crossing to both passengers and commercial traffic, or even establishing a free-trade zone.”

But in light of geo-political realities – namely, Israeli and U.S. opposition to the notion of relaxing pressure on Hamas – some analysts believe that Morsi will adopt an extremely gradualist approach to the issue.

“Morsi is likely to run into resistance from Egypt’s deeply-entrenched intelligence apparatus, which views the Gaza border file as a security, political and intelligence issue, over which it – not the president – has jurisdiction,” said Fahmi.

Initially at least, Fahmi added, Morsi “is only likely to take a series of half-measures aimed at the gradual easing of restrictions on cross-border traffic.”

On Jul. 23, new procedures came into effect allowing Palestinians entering Egypt from Gaza to stay in the country for up to 72 hours. Previously, Palestinians under the age of 40 entering Egypt had been escorted by Egyptian security personnel directly from the border to the airport. Egyptian security feared their possible affiliation with Hamas.

On Saturday, Jul. 28, Heniya, having met with Morsi two days earlier, said that the latter had agreed to “several measures” aimed at improving conditions in the Gaza Strip. These included increasing the Rafah crossing’s working hours to 12 per day and raising the daily limit on passengers from Gaza to 1,500.

Fahmi predicts that Morsi will also eventually open talks with other parties involved aimed at eventually opening the border up to commercial traffic.

“Morsi can’t just unilaterally open the Rafah crossing to commercial traffic without first discussing it with other relevant parties, namely, Israel and the (West Bank-based) Palestinian Authority,” he said.

“If the new president makes any serious changes in terms of Egypt’s Gaza policy, he will likely make them later on down the road,” Fahmi added. “But he will not make any dramatic moves in the short term while Egypt is facing so many domestic crises, political and otherwise.”

The FJP’s al-Husseini appeared to confirm this.

“Strategic decisions (like those regarding the Gaza border) aren’t the president’s to make alone,” he said. “Opening the crossing to commercial traffic, and thus ending the longstanding siege on Gaza, requires careful study of the political, economic and security-related implications of such a move.”

Supporters of Egyptian President Morsi in Tahrir Square to protest dissolution of parliament. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 15 2012 (IPS)

The first major confrontation between Egypt’s new Islamist president and its quasi-ruling military council – fought over the issue of legislative authority – appears to have been won by the latter.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies may have swept last year’s parliamentary polls, but lawmaking power remains in the hands of the military,” Magdi Sherif, political analyst and head of the Guardians of the Revolution Party established in the wake of last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, told IPS. “And recent developments have drawn Egypt’s judiciary into the conflict.”

On Jul. 8, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president and long-time Muslim Brotherhood figure, issued an executive decree calling on members of the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Egypt’s parliament, to convene. The decree further called for fresh parliamentary polls to be held 60 days after approval of a new constitution via popular referendum.

On Jul. 10, however, Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC) ‘suspended’ implementation of Morsi’s decree based on an earlier HCC ruling calling for the dissolution of parliament’s lower house. The constitutional court went on to stress that its decisions were “final” and “irreversible.”

The following day, Morsi backed down. Vowing to abide by the court ruling, he stressed the presidency’s “respect for the HCC, its judges and all rulings emanating from Egypt’s judiciary.”

Morsi’s Jul. 8 decree reconvening the People’s Assembly – one of his first major acts as Egypt’s new president – had come as a surprise. Not only did it contravene a constitutional court ruling, but it directly countermanded an order issued by Egypt’s military council.

The battle for legislative primacy began in mid-June, when the HCC ruled that the regulations governing last year’s legislative polls – which were swept by the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies – were unconstitutional. The following day, the military council ordered dissolution of parliament’s lower house, almost half the seats of which had been held by the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Many legal experts continue to question the move’s legitimacy.

“The HCC ruling failed to provide any legal rationale for dissolving the entire assembly,” Atef al-Banna, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University told IPS. “The court only found one-third of the seats in the assembly – those reserved for independents but which were contested by party-affiliated candidates – to be constitutionally questionable.”

When Morsi abruptly ordered the lower house to reconvene, Brotherhood officials hailed the move as a “reflection of the popular will.” The decision was taken, leading FJP member Mohamed al-Baltagi said at the time, “out of respect for the 30 million-plus Egyptians who cast ballots in last year’s parliamentary polls.”

Legal authorities and constitutional law experts, meanwhile, continue to disagree on the legal and constitutional validity of Morsi’s executive diktat.

“Issuing the decree was entirely within Morsi’s legal rights. The President of the republic has the authority to convene the People’s Assembly whenever he wants,” Sarwat Badawi, constitutional law professor at Cairo University told IPS.

According to Badawi, it was the military council’s initial order to dissolve the assembly that was in breach of the law, “since it wasn’t issued by the relevant authority.” The military council, Badawi asserted, “does not have the legal right to order the dissolution of parliament.”

He added: “The HCC, meanwhile, is only mandated with ruling on whether something is constitutional or unconstitutional. Issuing recommendations on how its verdicts should be implemented – as it did when it called for parliament’s dissolution – is outside the court’s purview.”

Mohamed Hamed al-Gamal, former head of Egypt’s State Council, the country’s highest judicial authority in legal disputes between the state and public, strenuously disagreed.

“Morsi’s decision had no constitutional basis and was outside the authority of the presidency,” al-Gamal told IPS. “What’s more, it directly contravened both the HCC ruling and the constitutional addendum.”

Al-Gamal was referring to a Jun. 17 constitutional ‘addendum’ issued by the military council only days after the initial HCC ruling and only days before last month’s hotly-contested presidential runoff. The controversial addendum significantly expanded the military council’s powers at the expense of the country’s democratically elected parliament and presidency.

Along with transferring legislative authority from the dissolved People’s Assembly to the military council, the addendum also transferred several major executive prerogatives – not least of which is the right to declare war – from the presidency to Egypt’s influential generals.

“According to the addendum, the president will share executive authority with the military council,” prominent political analyst Abdullah al-Sennawi told IPS. He went on to describe the move as “nothing less than a soft coup against Egypt’s post-revolution democratic transition.”

Some analysts believe that Morsi’s backdown from last week’s presidential decree was a strategic retreat; that the presidency – and by extension the Brotherhood – is merely saving its strength for its primary objective: the abrogation of the military council’s constitutional addendum.

“Morsi’s subsequent retreat suggests that the decree was a test balloon aimed at measuring the presidency’s strength vis-à-vis the military council,” said Sherif. “If the decree had gone unchallenged, and parliament was allowed to reconvene, Morsi would have taken additional steps aimed at consolidating his position with the ultimate objective of overturning the constitutional addendum and restricting the military’s political role.”

Morsi supporters, meanwhile, have been arrayed in Cairo’s Tahir Square since mid-June – in varying numbers – to protest the dissolution of the Islamist-led People’s Assembly and the terms of the constitutional addendum. Many of them denounce Egypt’s judiciary, describing it as “politicised” and “packed with Mubarak-era holdovers.”

“The recent constitutional court rulings only confirm that Egypt’s judiciary, like most other state institutions, remains full of Mubarak loyalists with counter-revolutionary agendas,” Mohamed Aweida, leading member of the as-yet-unlicensed Arab Unity Party told IPS from the square.

“The idea that these court rulings are being used to achieve political ends has a lot to support it,” Sherif, too, conceded. “This includes the uncanny timing of its initial verdict dissolving parliament, issued only days before last month’s presidential runoff.

“What’s more, the constitutional court took only 45 days to arrive at a ruling, when decisions on major constitutional issues usually take years,” Sherif added. He went on to note that two similar Mubarak-era HCC rulings – both regarding the constitutionality of parliament – had taken five and two years, respectively, to decide.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jun 23 2012 (IPS)

A week after Egypt’s presidential runoff between the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi and Mubarak-era premier Ahmed Shafiq, the military’s preferred candidate, both men continue to claim victory amid tit-for-tat allegations of electoral fraud.

Many Egyptians fear an official declaration for either candidate – expected imminently – could lead to a confrontation between the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies on one side and Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on the other.

“I smell blood. The atmosphere is extremely charged,” Abdullah al-Sennawi, prominent journalist and political analyst, told IPS. “A serious power struggle between the SCAF and the Brotherhood now appears inevitable.”

Preliminary results of Egypt’s hotly-contested Jun. 16-17 presidential runoff vote put the Brotherhood’s Morsi ahead with 52 percent of the vote. On Wednesday, Jun. 20, a group of reformist judges appeared to corroborate these claims, putting the final count at 13,238,335 votes for Morsi and 12,351,310 for Shafiq.

Other independent vote counts arrived at similar conclusions.

In a first round of polling late last month featuring 13 candidates, Morsi came in first with 25 percent of the vote, while Shafiq – against all expectations – came in a close second with 24 percent.

Final runoff results were initially scheduled to have been announced on Thursday, Jun. 21. But on Wednesday evening, Egypt’s Supreme Presidential Elections Commission (SPEC) declared that it needed more time to examine more than 400 claims of electoral fraud filed by both campaigns.

Final results are now expected to be announced on Sunday, Jun. 24, but the SPEC has not ruled out the possibility that they could be postponed further.

Morsi, who currently heads the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), runs on a platform of which social justice, economic development and the gradual implementation of Islamic law are central planks. Outlawed under the former regime, the Brotherhood – which won almost half the seats in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliament – represents Egypt’s most formidable political force.

Shafiq, meanwhile, a former head of the Egyptian Air Force and long-time civil aviation minister under Mubarak, served as the ousted president’s prime minister during last year’s Tahrir Square uprising. Shafiq, too, promises social justice and economic development, but his campaign mainly rests on the pledge to restore domestic stability after a year and a half of post-revolution turmoil.

At a Thursday press conference, Shafiq dismissed the preliminary results favouring his rival – which he claims are fraudulent – and reiterated his own claim to victory.

“I’m confident I will be named the next president. The numbers are indicative of my victory, which will be confirmed by the SPEC on Sunday,” Shafiq stated. He went on to allege that the Brotherhood’s vote count had been “tampered with” and was “thus invalid.”

The lengthy delay in announcing final results, meanwhile, has raised eyebrows.

“The postponement of official results has generated considerable public mistrust,” the Salafist Nour Party, which backs Morsi’s bid, declared in a statement Thursday.

“We’re prepared to accept any result, as long as it is produced fairly and transparently,” Magdi Sherif, head of the Guardians of the Revolution Party (which boycotted the runoff vote), told IPS. “But this lengthy delay throws the fairness of the elections into doubt.”

The SCAF, meanwhile, has repeatedly vowed to relinquish executive authority – which it has wielded since Mubarak’s ouster early last year – upon the election of a new president. Several recent developments, however, suggest that the military council is loath to hand over its considerable powers – especially to an Islamist head of state.

On Jun. 14, Egypt’s High Constitutional Court declared the regulations governing last year’s legislative elections to be unconstitutional. Two days later, the SCAF dissolved the People’s Assembly (the lower house of Egypt’s parliament), almost half of the seats of which had been held by the Brotherhood’s FJP.

Legal experts question the move.

‘”There was no need to dissolve the entire assembly,” Atef al-Banna, a professor of constitutional law at Cairo University, told IPS. “And the ruling fails to provide any rationale for doing so.”

Three days later, the SCAF issued a constitutional ‘addendum’ granting itself full legislative authority at the expense of the dissolved Islamist-led parliament. The addendum also gave the military council full control over the constitution-drafting process, also at parliament’s expense.

“This ‘addendum,’ which was unilaterally imposed by the SCAF, represents a coup against Egypt’s democratic transition,” said al-Sennawi.

“Any constitutional amendment like this must be put before a popular referendum for approval,” said al-Banna.

In response to these developments, and fearing the imminent declaration of a Shafiq presidential victory, tens of thousands of protesters – mostly Morsi supporters – turned out at Tahrir Square on Friday and Saturday. The demonstrations were organised and endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its FJP, along with Salafist parties, the moderate Islamist Wasat Party and a handful of secular revolutionary groups.

“We all know Morsi won (the election),” FJP member Ahmed Samir told IPS from the flashpoint square. “So we plan to stay here until they declare Morsi the rightful winner, reverse the dissolution of parliament and annul this so-called constitutional addendum.”

Demonstrators currently arrayed in Tahrir aren’t only Islamists.

Ahmed Maher, general coordinator of the secular-revolutionary April 6 youth movement, which played a prominent role in last year’s uprising and has recently thrown its weight behind Morsi, told IPS: “If Shafiq is declared the winner, we’re prepared to launch another revolution.”

While the mood in Tahrir – and throughout the country – remains fraught, demonstrators stress their commitment to peaceful protest.

“We are absolutely committed to the peaceful nature of our demonstrations; we would absolutely under no circumstances resort to violence, regardless of who is eventually declared president,” said the FJP’s Samir. “We only call on the military not to employ violence against us.”

Apparently taking no chances, the SCAF issued an official statement on Friday asserting that “any attacks on public or private institutions” would be “dealt with immediately by police and the army.”

Demonstrations in Tahrir Square are now against rising prices. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, May 18 2012 (IPS)

More than 15 months after Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising and four months after free parliamentary polls, many Egyptians say that daily living conditions are worse now than they were in the Mubarak era.

“Conditions for the average Egyptian have become worse – economically, socially and in terms of security – than they were before the revolution,” Egyptian analyst Ammar Ali Hassan tells IPS.

Since the popular uprising early last year which saw the Mubarak regime replaced with a ruling military council, Egyptians have complained of steadily rising prices for a number of strategic commodities. These include basic foodstuffs – sugar, rice, cooking oil – and vital fuels, such as butane, diesel and gasoline.

“Over the course of the last year, prices at the market have skyrocketed inexcusably. One kilogram of tomatoes just jumped from one to five pounds overnight (one Egyptian pound is 16 U.S. cents),” says Tarek Moussa, a 34-year-old employee at a local trading company. “My monthly salary is now barely enough to keep food on the table for my wife and two children.”

The steadily rising cost of living has been accompanied by supply shortages, especially of fuels used for transport and cooking.

In Cairo, recent months have seen long lines at gas stations – frequently stretching around the block – due to weeks-long gasoline shortages. There have also been frequent reports of fights breaking out over butane gas cylinders, used for cooking by most Egyptian households, which are also in increasingly short supply.

“My transportation costs have jumped sharply because bus and microbus drivers have all doubled their prices due to the chronic shortage of gasoline,” says Moussa. “Given my low salary, it’s become more cost- effective to simply not go to work.”

Along with these deepening economic grievances, many Egyptians also complain of an ongoing post- revolution security vacuum and its effects on domestic security.

At the height of last year’s uprising, the Mubarak regime withdrew Egypt’s police forces nationwide, leaving domestic policing responsibilities in the hands of the military – which has done little to stop the resultant upsurge in crime. Police forces have yet to be redeployed at pre-revolution levels.

In the streets of the capital, muggings – an infrequent occurrence during the Mubarak era – have now become commonplace. Automobile theft appears to have become one of the country’s few growth industries.

The lack of domestic security, in tandem with ongoing regional turmoil, has also taken its toll on Egypt’s once thriving tourism sector, which has traditionally represented a leading employer and primary source of foreign currency. According to Egypt’s tourism ministry, annual tourism revenue fell from some 12.5 billion dollars in 2010 to some 8.8 billion dollars in 2011.

On Apr. 20, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from across the political spectrum converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to voice longstanding grievances, chief among them the worsening standard of living.

Hassan, however, is quick to stress that Egypt’s deepening economic and security woes should not be blamed on last year’s uprising.

“The revolution, which liberated Egyptian political life after more than 30 years of autocracy, should not be blamed for deteriorating conditions,” he says. “The current deterioration is a direct result of the military council’s failure to properly administer Egypt’s ongoing transition to democracy.

“Had the ruling military establishment adopted a few simple measures, living conditions would be better today. It should have worked harder to ensure domestic security, prevent market monopolies, stimulate the economy and recover public funds pilfered by the former regime.”

Hassan does not rule out the possibility that the negligence is intentional. “These conspicuous failures might reflect the military’s lack of political and administrative experience, or hasty decision-making. Or they could be premeditated with the aim of discrediting the revolution and its ideals.”

The ruling military council has repeatedly vowed to hand over executive authority to Egypt’s next head of state after presidential elections are held later this month.

Voicing a common opinion, Magdi Sherif, head of the centrist Guardians of the Revolution Party, attributes Egypt’s worsening living conditions to the fact that “most, if not all, of Egypt’s key economic activity remains in the hands of former regime elements.”

Sherif attributes the ongoing security vacuum to a “fifth column of Mubarak regime holdovers who remain in charge of the interior ministry, which has actively worked – and continues to work – to promote instability and discredit the revolution.”

Both men, however, also place blame – albeit to a lesser extent – on Egypt’s post-revolution political powers. These include Islamist parties, which together now hold more than three-quarters of the seats in parliament, along with their liberal and leftist counterparts.

“Egypt’s economic situation wouldn’t be so bad if the Islamist parties used their newfound power in parliament to press for outstanding revolutionary demands, like passing antitrust legislation and raising the minimum wage,” says Hassan. “Instead, they’re using their parliamentary clout to jockey for power with the ruling military council.”

Sherif, for his part, is quick to point out that post-revolution Egypt is in its “political adolescence”.

“And this adolescence extends to all political factions: the Islamists, the liberals, the revolutionaries,” Sherif tells IPS. “This is a primary reason for the current political deadlock – most political forces are putting their own narrow interests above those of the nation.”

Meanwhile, candidates in Egypt’s upcoming presidential election, slated for May 23/24, have lined up to promise would-be voters an improved domestic security environment, better living conditions and rapid economic development.

“Central planks of my electoral programme include re-establishing security, raising pensions and the minimum wage, stimulating the economy with large development projects and improving public health and education services,” Amr Moussa, former Arab League chief and presidential frontrunner, tells IPS.

“Candidates are promising to solve all the country’s problems,” says Sherif. “But Egypt’s next president better deliver or he could have a second revolution on his hands.” (END)

The two weeks since Egypt’s abrupt cancellation of a Mubarak-era gas-export deal with Israel have seen an exchange of indirect threats and warnings between the two countries, culminating in an apparent Israeli military build-up on the border of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The banners at this Cairo demonstration say: 'No to gas exports to the Zionist enemy'. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

On Apr. 22, Egypt unilaterally cancelled a 2005 export agreement for the sale of natural gas to Israel, which for the past five years had ensured a steady supply of Egyptian gas from the northern Sinai Peninsula to Israel. Egyptian energy officials attributed the move to Israel’s failure to meet payment deadlines, stressing that the decision was “not politically motivated.”

Israel, which is said to depend on Egyptian gas for some 40 percent of its electricity needs, was quick to register its opposition.

Several Israeli officials warned of the move’s dire implications for the Camp David peace agreement, signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979. Israeli opposition leader Shaul Mofaz called on his country’s chief patron, the United States, to intervene on Israel’s behalf.

The Israeli Finance Ministry went so far as to describe the move as “a dangerous precedent that casts clouds over the peace agreements and the atmosphere of peace between Egypt and Israel.”

While Israeli officials have vowed to take legal action to ensure the supply of Egyptian gas, local energy analysts say Egypt was well within its legal rights to opt out of the deal.

“The Israeli purchasers failed to pay their bills to the tune of some 100 million dollars,” Ibrahim Zahran, Egyptian petroleum expert, told IPS. “The contract clearly states that if either party fails to live up to its obligations, the other has the right to terminate the agreement.”

Egypt first began pumping natural gas to Israel in 2008, based on a deal hammered out three years earlier that allowed Egypt-Israel joint venture East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) to sell Egyptian natural gas to Israeli buyers, including the government-run Israel Electric Corporation.

Given Israel’s broad unpopularity on the Egyptian street, the gas-export deal has met with widespread public opposition since its inception. Critics note that, by providing Israel with Egyptian gas at far below international prices (while Egypt itself suffers from chronic energy shortages), the deal effectively supports – albeit indirectly – Israel’s ongoing occupation and annexation of Palestinian land.

Notably, the pipeline that carries the gas across the northern Sinai Peninsula to Israel has been subject to 14 attacks of varying severity – all by as-yet-unidentified culprits – since Egypt’s revolution early last year, often resulting in lengthy supply stoppages. As a result, electricity prices in Israel have reportedly increased by over 20 percent since the beginning of 2011.

Given the export deal’s broad unpopularity, the decision to scrap it was welcomed by Egyptian public figures and groups across the political spectrum.

Mahmoud Ghozlan, spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (which now controls almost half of the seats in parliament), called the decision “excellent,” noting that Egypt “badly needs all of its natural gas to meet its own domestic consumption needs.” The liberal Egyptian Social Democratic Party described the move as “the inevitable fruit of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution.”

Frontrunners in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential polls, slated for May 23/24, likewise hailed the decision. “The move should come as no surprise given the information about the corruption that surrounded the deal,” former Arab League chief and presidential hopeful Amr Moussa told IPS.

Indeed, Sameh Fahmi, Mubarak’s last petroleum minister, is currently on trial – along with six other former officials – on charges of squandering public funds related to the gas-export agreement. According to prosecutors, the deal has so far resulted in over 714 million dollars in losses to the public purse.

While the decision to terminate the agreement was officially attributed to “commercial reasons”, Egyptian analysts believe it was prompted by political and strategic considerations.

“The move transcends mere commercial factors,” said analyst Fahmi. “A decision of this magnitude couldn’t have been taken without the approval of Egypt’s ruling military council.

“The decision has certainly bolstered the popularity of both the military council (which has governed the country since Mubarak’s ouster) and the military-appointed government, both of which had come under increasingly strident popular criticism in recent months.”

Fahmi does not rule out the possibility of military escalations should relations deteriorate further.

Only days before the termination of the gas-export deal, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reportedly described Egypt as a “greater threat than Iran”, calling for the deployment of additional divisions to Israel’s southern border. “We have to be prepared for all possibilities,” Lieberman was quoted as saying in the Hebrew press.

And one day after the deal’s termination, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of Egypt’s ruling military council, warned that Egypt’s border was “perpetually in danger.” In a speech before troops from the Egyptian Second Army – who were conducting exercises in Sinai at the time – Tantawi promised to “break the legs of anyone who dared encroach on our borders.”

According to Fahmi, Tantawi’s statement “sent a message to Israel that Egypt is ready to defend its territory from any aggression.” It was not insignificant, Fahmi went on to point out, that Tantawi’s comments “came as the Egyptian Second Army was holding its first live-fire military drills in Sinai since the signing of the peace agreement.”

In a further apparent escalation last week, reports emerged that Israel planned to deploy at least 22 reserve battalions to its borders with Syria and Egypt due to “growing instability” and possible “security threats” emanating from both countries. Israel’s military has reportedly already approved official requests for the call-up of reserve forces.

“Recent developments point to an Israeli military build-up on the border with Sinai, carried out in order to deal with Egypt from a position of strength,” said Fahmi. “In the absence of a diplomatic resolution of the current crisis in relations, it would be a mistake to dismiss the potential for eventual military conflict.”

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has surprised both supporters and rivals by abruptly announcing its own nominee for upcoming presidential elections, despite earlier promises that it would not field a candidate from within its own ranks.

Al-Shater at his first press conference as presidential candidate. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

“The Brotherhood’s sudden decision to field a presidential candidate was a hasty one,” Amr Shobki, sitting MP and political analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS. “The move is sure to have a negative impact on the Brotherhood’s credibility and public image.”

At the height of last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, as longstanding president Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power grew increasingly tenuous, the Muslim Brotherhood – long Egypt’s most formidable opposition force – rushed to assure critics both at home and abroad that it would not field a candidate in any post-Mubarak presidential poll.

Following Mubarak’s ouster in February of last year, the group went so far as to expel one of its leading lights, Abdel Moneim Abul-Fotouh, for his insistence on making a bid for the presidency. Abul-Fotouh is currently considered a leading Islamist candidate in the presidential election slated for next month.

Parliamentary polls earlier this year yielded a landslide victory for the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which won almost half the seats in the People’s Assembly (the lower house of Egypt’s parliament). The FJP also dominates a newly-established Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution, members of which were appointed by the FJP-led parliament.

Despite mounting criticism that the FJP was gaining inordinate influence over Egypt’s political machinery, the party shocked most observers when it announced its intention Mar. 31 to vie for the presidency as well. The same day saw Khairat al-Shater, the group’s second-in-command, officially register his presidential candidacy.

The Brotherhood’s critics from across the political spectrum blasted the move, saying it showed up the group’s penchant for authoritarianism.

“Al-Shater’s nomination confirms that the Brotherhood is only interested in monopolising authority, especially after its domination of parliament and the constitution-drafting process,” Abdel Ghaffar Shukr, founder of the Popular Socialist Alliance established in the wake of last year’s revolution told IPS.

“The move is likely to have an adverse impact on the electoral prospects of other Islamist candidates, especially Abul-Fotouh and (Salafist candidate) Hazem Abu Ismail, both of whom will lose the votes of Brotherhood members and sympathisers,” Shukr added.

In an Apr. 1 statement, the Brotherhood defended the move, saying its earlier decision not to contest the presidential race had been based on “internal and external reasons.” But the recent emergence of “real threats” to the democratic process, the statement went on, had prompted it to reverse its decision.

These threats, the group explained, included “attempts to disrupt the functioning” of Egypt’s elected parliament and the new Constituent Assembly, the ruling military council’s rejection of parliamentary demands to dissolve the government, and the recent entrance of several figures associated with the ousted Mubarak regime into the looming presidential contest.

“Faced with these challenges, and after studying the situation in its entirety, the Muslim Brotherhood decided to field its own presidential candidate,” the statement concluded.

Like most critics, Shobki remains “unconvinced” by the group’s stated justifications for its sudden policy change.

“Nothing has changed recently except for the Brotherhood’s relationship with the ruling military council, which has become increasingly tense in recent weeks due to disagreements over the incumbent government,” he said.

Last month saw the end of a year-long, post-revolution honeymoon between the Brotherhood and the military council – which has governed the country since Mubarak’s ouster – when the latter rejected demands by the FJP-led parliamentary majority to dissolve the military-appointed government of Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri.

Shobki went on to predict “fierce competition” between the three Islamist frontrunners – al-Shater, Abul- Fotouh and Abu Ismail – in the upcoming race. “The success of the Brotherhood candidate is by no means assured,” he stressed, “because presidential elections aren’t like those for parliament.”

According to political analyst Diaa Rashwan, the decision to nominate al-Shater represents a “watershed” in the Brotherhood’s history.

“It’s a sea change in the group’s policy, from a strategy of gradual change to one of rapid transformation,” he said at a Cairo University seminar. “And it’s indicative of the Brotherhood’s desire to dominate Egypt’s post-revolution political arena.”

Rashwan said the move would prompt the group’s rivals to join forces against it. “It’s entirely possible that the protesters’ chants we now hear against ‘military rule’ will eventually be replaced with chants against ‘Brotherhood rule’,” he said.

Rashwan said the move would also lead to “serious rifts” within Brotherhood ranks.

On Apr. 2, Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan reiterated the group’s commitment to following through on its decision, insisting that the move had “not led to any internal rifts within the Brotherhood.”

Debate continues, however, over whether al-Shater is legally eligible to contest the election – he was convicted on criminal charges of money laundering and “affiliation with a banned group” under the Mubarak regime. On Sunday (Apr. 8) the FJP officially registered party member Mohamed Mursi as an alternative candidate should al-Shater be disqualified on legal grounds.

Sunday, the final day to register candidacies, also saw Mubarak-era intelligence chief Omar Suleiman officially enter the presidential race. Although Suleiman is closely associated with the ousted president – he briefly served as Mubarak’s vice-president during last year’s uprising – he is said to enjoy considerable support, and is now seen as a serious contender.

“These eleventh-hour entrants into the race, especially al-Shater and Suleiman, have entirely changed the electoral equation,” said Shobki. “It’s impossible to predict who the frontrunners will be until all the candidates have a chance to present their political platforms.”

A final list of approved presidential candidates will be announced Apr. 26, to be followed by the election due to be held May 23 and 24. If no single candidate wins an outright majority, the two leading contenders will face each other in a runoff vote slated for Jun. 16 and 17.

The large proportion of Islamist-leaning members in Egypt’s Constituent Assembly elected last month has led to accusations that Islamist parties – especially the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – are effectively monopolising the constitution-drafting process.

Demonstrators in Cairo protesting against an Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

On Mar. 17, elected MPs from both the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council (the lower and upper houses of Egypt’s parliament) agreed regulations governing the establishment of the 100-member assembly. The move came under Article 60 of a Constitutional Declaration issued by Egypt’s ruling military council – and endorsed by popular referendum – in the wake of last year’s revolution.

At the meeting, the parliamentary majority decided that parliament itself would select assembly members, 50 of whom would be drawn from among from sitting MPs and 50 from outside parliament. The decision was rejected by most liberal and leftist representatives, who complained that such a system would provide Islamist parties – which currently dominate both houses of parliament – with unparalleled influence over the constitution-drafting process.

“The Muslim Brotherhood’s insistence on including 50 sitting MPs in the 100-member assembly suggests that it hopes to monopolise Egypt’s political life in the same autocratic manner as did (ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s now defunct) National Democratic Party,” says Sherif.

Earlier this year, elections for Egypt’s People’s Assembly yielded a landslide victory for Islamist parties, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s FJP and its allies capturing more than 75 percent of the seats. Shura Council elections, which wrapped up last month, returned similar results, leaving Islamist parties – again led by the FJP – in control of some two-thirds of parliament’s upper, consultative chamber.

Amid mounting criticism from non-Islamist political actors, both houses of Egypt’s Islamist-heavy parliament convened again on Mar. 24 to select members of the Constituent Assembly. Although initial reports were conflicting, it now appears that between 60 and 70 of the assembly’s 100 members are either members of Islamist parties – mainly the FJP and the Salafist Nour Party – or closely linked with them.

The preponderance of Islamist-leaning figures in the assembly quickly triggered a wave of resignations among its non-Islamist members.

Over the next few days, almost every assembly member not affiliated with the two main Islamist parties formally withdrew from the constitution-drafting body, including representatives of the centre-left Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the liberal Free Egyptians Party, the leftist Popular Socialist Alliance, and the liberal Wafd Party. Even representatives of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University and the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party ultimately quit the assembly.

Hazem al-Beblawi, a former finance minister and one of the first to announce his withdrawal, complained that the majority of assembly members lacked the necessary qualifications for the task at hand.

“The assembly should consist of legal scholars, intellectuals and veteran politicians, but the current members lack these credentials,” al-Belbawi was quoted as saying in the local press. “It doesn’t matter that most are of an Islamist orientation, but they must have the prerequisite political and legal qualifications.”

Speaking to IPS, presidential candidate Amr Moussa, former foreign minister and Arab League chief, asserted that the methods used to select assembly members should be “reconsidered” so as to “better represent all segments of Egyptian society.”

Constituent Assembly member Mahmoud al-Khodeiri, prominent judge and head of parliament’s legislative and constitutional affairs committee, defended the assembly’s composition, asserting that members had been elected in compliance with last year’s Constitutional Declaration. “No one can say that the constitution-drafting process will reflect only one point of view, since all political orientations were represented in the assembly,” al-Khodeiri told reporters.

Recent days have seen several demonstrations in Cairo organised by non-Islamist parties and movements – including one outside Egypt’s parliament building – to protest the assembly’s large proportion of Islamist members. Some activists are now calling for a million-man demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square next week to demand the assembly’s reformulation.

Muslim Brotherhood officials downplay the significance of the resignations.

“The withdrawal of certain political forces will affect neither the assembly’s mission nor its legitimacy,” FJP Secretary-General for Cairo Mohamed al-Beltagi tells IPS. “Members have the right to withdraw, but I reject accusations that the FJP is dominating the assembly, because the party – in agreement with other parties – chose assembly members from among all political orientations.”

In statements to the press, Shura Council president and FJP member Ahmed Fahmi stressed that it was “only natural that Islamist parties, which enjoy an elected majority in parliament, would have a corresponding majority in the Constituent Assembly.”

On Mar. 28, despite the absence of a quarter of its membership, the assembly held its first meeting, at which it elected parliamentary speaker and leading FJP member Saad El-Katatni as assembly chairman. It also drew up a committee tasked with collecting proposals for constitutional articles from civil society and opening talks with resigned members in hopes of persuading them to rejoin the assembly.

In an effort to appease critics, the Brotherhood and its allies have offered to replace some current assembly members. Spokesmen for the non-Islamist minority, however, appear bent on seeing the assembly reformulated from scratch.

On Sunday (Apr. 1), Sameh Ashour, head of the ruling military council’s Advisory Council and one of the Constituent Assembly’s former members, called for the current assembly’s dissolution. He went on to assert that Article 60 of last year’s Constitutional Declaration, which gives parliamentarians the authority to elect assembly members, should be “modified”.

With the next Constituent Assembly meeting slated for Wednesday (Apr. 4), many express doubt that the decimated congregation will be up to the task at hand – namely, the drafting of a new national charter. According to the timeline laid down by the ruling military council, a new constitution should be hammered out within six months.

“The Brotherhood is making a historical mistake with its insistence on dominating the assembly,” liberal MP and former assembly member Wahid Abdel Maguid, who is also an expert in political affairs at the Cairo-based Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said in a recent statement. “With only 75 percent of its membership still intact, the success or failure of this assembly will quickly become apparent.”

By Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, and - -
CAIRO, Mar 20 2012 (IPS)

More than 800 Egyptians of varied backgrounds and political orientations have officially registered their candidacies for the country’s first post- Mubarak presidential election. Although more candidates are expected to emerge before the registration process ends Apr. 8, most local analysts say the contest – slated for late May – will be dominated by a small handful of high-profile contenders.

Presidential candidate Amr Moussa on the campaign trail. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

According to Egypt’s Higher Presidential Elections Commission (HPEC), candidates will have from Apr. 30 to May 21 to do all their campaigning, while polling will take place on May 23 and 24. In the event that no single candidate wins an outright majority, a runoff vote will be held Jun. 16 and 17.

Final results will be announced Jun. 21, immediately after which Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has promised to formally hand over executive authority to the new president.

Presidential hopefuls can only register candidacies if they enjoy the support of an established political party represented in Egypt’s current parliament; have the backing of 30 sitting MPs; or collect the signatures of 30,000 supporters from among the citizens.

Two high-profile political personalities hitherto touted as likely frontrunners have already been removed from the equation.

Late last year, Ayman Nour, runner-up in 2005 presidential polls and current head of the Ghad al-Thawra Party, was barred from running due to a previous conviction for electoral fraud. And in January, reform campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei, former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, bowed out of the race citing fears the elections would lack transparency.

According to Abdel-Fattah, the withdrawal of ElBaradei – long considered a major contender – has left the liberal camp without a clear frontrunner.

“ElBaradei had been the liberals’ best hope, and his departure has left the liberal camp without a preferred candidate,” he said. “The Islamist camp, meanwhile, which largely controls parliament, is currently split between three top nominees.”

The best known among these is Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, secretary-general of the Arab Doctors Union and former leading member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Aboul-Fotouh was expelled from the Brotherhood in the wake of last year’s revolution when he insisted on making a bid for the presidency despite the group’s decision not to field a candidate.

The two other Islamist frontrunners are Hazem Sallah Abu Ismail, a prominent lawyer and Muslim preacher who looks favourably on the notion of implementing Islamic Law; and Selim al-Awa, an Islamist law professor and former secretary-general of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, who stands for a civil state based on an Islamic frame of reference.

Of these three, Abdel-Fattah said, Aboul-Fotouh appears to be the most popular.

“He’s a moderate Islamist who speaks the language of modernity, and he’s well-liked for having fought Mubarak-era corruption,” said Abdel-Fattah. “If he allied himself with a viable secular candidate – with one as president and the other vice-president – he would have an extremely strong chance of winning.”

Neither of Egypt’s two main Islamist movements – the Brotherhood and the Salafists, who together control over 70 percent of the seats in parliament – have as yet thrown their support behind a particular candidate. Both groups say they will do so only once the candidacy-registration period ends next month.

As for the more secular-minded candidates, Amr Moussa, former secretary-general of the Arab League (2001-2011), leads the pack.

Moussa served as foreign minister under Mubarak from 1991 to 2001, when he was kicked upstairs to the Arab League secretariat-general. Many observers attributed Moussa’s “promotion” to Mubarak’s fears that his outspoken minister was becoming too popular due to his strong public criticism of Israeli violence against the Palestinians.

Moussa promises a five-year plan for the first stage of Egypt’s political and economic renewal. “I will work to restore Egypt’s historical role as regional leader; fight corruption; and guarantee social justice – all of which can be achieved in less than ten years,” Moussa told IPS.

Other prominent non-Islamist candidates include Ahmed Shafik, a Mubarak-era civil aviation minister and the last Mubarak-appointed prime minister (Jan.29-Mar.3, 2011); and Hamadin Sabahi, a former MP (2000- 2010) and founder of the Nasserist Karama (‘Dignity’) Party. Sabahi, who actively opposed the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, was arrested several times during both the Sadat and Mubarak eras for his political activity.

There are also two candidates said to enjoy the support of the ruling SCAF.

The first, Hossam Khairallah, former head of Egypt’s general-intelligence apparatus (2000-2005), strenuously denies being the military’s candidate. “I’m of a military background and I welcome the military’s support – but I’m not the SCAF’s candidate,” Khairallah told IPS. “I’m just a citizen with a plan to promote Egypt’s revival.”

The second, Mansour Hasan, head of the SCAF’s advisory council, only announced his intention to run this month following repeated denials that he planned to do so. Hasan served in several key positions under late president Anwar Sadat, and had reportedly once been considered by Sadat as a possible replacement for then vice-president Hosni Mubarak.

According to recent speculation, Hasan is the preferred candidate of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the ruling military council. Hasan, however, has repeatedly stressed that he did not secure the support of either the Brotherhood or the SCAF before announcing his presidential bid.

Abdel-Fattah says Hasan’s eleventh-hour candidacy “could be a final attempt by the SCAF to introduce a nominee who both enjoys significant support and who, as head of the SCAF’s advisory council, knows how to deal with the top military brass.”

All these frontrunners call for promoting social justice, reforming Egypt’s moribund public health and education sectors, regaining Egypt’s regional standing, fighting corruption and employing foreign investment to bolster the national economy. They all also agree on the need to maintain Article 2 of Egypt’s current constitution, which stipulates that legislation be based on the principles of Islamic Law.

Other contenders for Egypt’s highest office include Mubarak-era intelligence chief Omar Suleiman; female activist Buthaina Kamel; and Hosni Mubarak, first cousin and namesake of the recently deposed president.

Excerpt:

By Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, and - -
CAIRO, Mar 8 2012 (IPS)

Egypt’s legal campaign against a handful of foreign NGOs reached a crescendo last week with the repatriation of several U.S. nationals indicted on charges of engaging in unauthorised civil society activity. But many local analysts believe the latest developments – far from signifying the end of the crisis – portend nothing less than a seismic shift in Egypt’s longstanding “strategic relationship” with the U.S.

“A year after Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt-U.S. relations have come to a crossroads,” Tarek Fahmi, political science professor at Cairo University, told IPS. “The issue of foreign-directed ‘civil society’ groups has led to the first fundamental crisis between the two countries in more than 30 years.”

On Thursday (Mar. 1) evening, 15 foreign nationals, including eight Americans, hastily departed Cairo for the U.S. after the sudden lifting of a travel ban placed on them earlier by Egyptian judicial authorities. The foreigners, who included the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, had been charged with operating foreign NGOs inside Egypt without official permission.

“The U.S. government has provided a plane to facilitate their departure and they have left the country,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declared Thursday night. She was quick to add, however, that their departure “doesn’t resolve the legal case or the larger issues concerning the NGOs.”

Judicial officials and political groups of all stripes decried the release of the indicted foreigners, which they were quick to attribute to U.S. pressure. The following day, more than 200 protesters marched from Cairo’s Tahrir Square towards the nearby U.S. embassy to protest perceived foreign interference in Egypt’s judicial affairs.

On Saturday (Mar. 3), scores of Egyptian judges lodged an official request for an investigation into the judicial authorities that lifted the travel ban on the indicted foreigners. ‘Release of Americans rocks Egypt’s judiciary’, read the Sunday (Mar. 4) headlines of state daily Al-Gomhouriya.

“Lifting the travel ban on the American activists was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Farid Ismail, member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said at a Sunday meeting of parliament’s national security committee. He went on to call for the government’s immediate resignation.

At the same meeting, liberal MP Ziad Bahaa Eddin al-Eleimi called for cutting Cairo’s diplomatic relations with Washington, charging the government of Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri with “high treason” for “caving in to U.S. pressure.”

The affair first began in late December, when authorities raided the offices of five foreign “pro-democracy” NGOs, seizing computers and documents. The five organisations were the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House and the International Centre for Journalists – all based in the U.S. – and the Germany-based Konrad-Adenauer Foundation.

Shortly afterward, 43 individuals – Egyptians and foreigners, including 19 American NGO employees – were indicted on suspicion of engaging in unauthorised activity. Slapped with an official travel ban, several sought refuge at the U.S. embassy in Cairo; others were stopped at the airport while reportedly trying to leave the country.

Washington reacted angrily to the moves, which the international media portrayed as another example of Mubarak-style repression against civil society by Egypt’s military leadership.

Most Egyptian civil society figures, too, condemned the legal action taken against the foreign organisations and their employees.

“The ruling military council is trying to tarnish the image of these organisations instead of owning up to its own failures in administering Egypt’s (post-revolution) transitional phase,” Bahei Eddine Hassan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, told IPS.

Many civil society activists also voice fears that additional NGOs may eventually be targeted. An estimated 40,000 NGOs, engaged in everything from nature conservation to eradicating illiteracy, are believed to be currently operating inside Egypt. A large number of these have been established in the one year since Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising, most of them ostensibly devoted to human rights and democracy building.

According to Fahmi, longstanding suspicions about foreign-directed civil society groups are not entirely without justification.

“Under Mubarak, these organisations were allowed to operate under the rubric of promoting democracy and human rights,” he said. “But there’s much to suggest that some of these groups are here mainly to gather information about domestic politics – especially after the revolution – and perhaps even influence Egyptian political parties and groups in accordance with U.S. interests.”

In mid-February, U.S. Congress upped the ante by hinting at the possible cancellation of the annual U.S. aid package to Egypt – totalling some 1.5 billion dollars – if the indicted Americans were not released. Egypt’s annual aid allotment from the U.S. has remained in more or less the same form since the signing of the 1979 Camp David peace agreement with Israel.

Not to be outdone, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose FJP controls almost half of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliament, responded by threatening to abrogate the Camp David agreement in the event that U.S. aid was halted.

“The U.S. assistance package is directly linked to Camp David,” Essam al-Arian, FJP vice-president and head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told IPS. “If Washington cuts the aid, we reserve the right to modify – or entirely abrogate – the peace agreement.”

Feb. 26 saw the trial begin of 26 foreign nationals, including 19 Americans, indicted in the case. Two days later, however, all three presiding judges abruptly announced their decision to step down “for reasons of discomfort”. They provided no further explanation.

Despite the judges’ sudden withdrawal and the defendants’ recent departure, the trial is nevertheless scheduled to resume – under a new panel of judges and with suspects being tried in absentia – on Thursday (Mar. 8).

Meanwhile, local analysts attribute Egypt’s decision to release the indicted foreigners to a backroom deal between the ruling military council and Washington. “The military council obviously came to an understanding with the U.S., details of which remain uncertain until now,” said Cairo University’s Fahmi.

But while the military council remains tight-lipped on the issue, recent statements by U.S. officials suggest some form of quid pro quo.

“We have all been focused over these past few weeks on the NGO issue, and it is a matter of serious continuing concern for the United States,” Nuland stated Saturday. “But it is also important to underscore that the U.S. remains committed to a strong bilateral relationship with Egypt.”

She added: “Despite the recent strains, and differences on certain issues, the fundamentals of this strategic relationship remain strong.”

Fahmi, however, like many other local observers, doesn’t see things going back to business as usual.

“Judging by its recent behaviour, Washington continues to act as if the Mubarak regime – which never dreamed of challenging the U.S. – was still in power,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to have realised that here was a revolution in Egypt – and that it can now therefore expect a degree of resistance to its diktats.”

Excerpt:

Several revolutionary groups are calling for mass demonstrations against military rule on Wednesday to coincide with the first anniversary of the January 25 uprising that ultimately toppled the Mubarak regime. But many express doubt the event will succeed in replicating last year’s revolutionary fervour on the part of the masses, most of whom express a desire for stability and a smooth transition to democratic governance above all else.

Recent protests at Tahrir have seen a dwindling turnout. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

“I doubt we’ll see another ‘Day of Rage’ like the one we saw last January 25,” Amr Hashem Rabie, expert in political affairs at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told IPS. “Much of the public is fed up with demonstrations and is more concerned now with meeting their daily needs.”

In December, dozens of revolutionary movements, including several liberal and leftist parties and groups, began issuing calls for nationwide protests, especially in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, to mark the revolution’s first anniversary. Planned demonstrations are intended to convey one overriding demand: the immediate transfer of power from Egypt’s ruling military council, which has governed the country since Mubarak’s ouster last February, to a civilian authority.

“Revolutionary groups want to see the immediate handover of executive authority from the military council to the speaker of parliament or an interim president, chosen by parliament, who will administer the current transitional period until presidential elections are held and a new constitution is drawn up,” Ahmed Maher, general coordinator of the April 6 youth movement, which played a prominent role in last year’s uprising, told IPS.

Demonstrators also plan to stress other longstanding revolutionary demands, including a halt to the practice of trying civilians in military courts and the release of all activists detained by the military within the last year.

“The movements involved are still debating whether to stage an open-ended sit-in in Tahrir Square in the event that our grievances aren’t addressed,” Maher added.

In an effort to rally the masses behind their cause, revolutionary groups have been waging a nationwide street campaign aimed at raising public awareness about recent abuses committed by military personnel against political demonstrators. In November, dozens of protesters were killed by security forces in five days of clashes in and around Tahrir Square. Similar clashes, if smaller in scope, broke out again in mid- December.

But many Egyptians show little enthusiasm for the planned demonstrations, saying that Egypt’s transition to free electoral politics – a timeline for which has been laid down by the military council – should be allowed to run its course.

“We just held free parliamentary polls for the first time in decades and presidential elections are around the corner,” said 45-year-old taxi driver Ibrahim Sayyed. “I don’t know why these people keep protesting. Constant strikes and demonstrations will only lead to more instability and hurt the already struggling economy.”

“I supported the revolution to oust Mubarak, but we’ve had free elections and the people made their choice,” agreed 35-year-old engineer Mohamed Ashraf. “Those calling for another uprising are promoting chaos and weakening Egypt; they’re putting short-term political interests ahead of the country’s welfare.”

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls, which wrapped up earlier this month, yielded a landslide victory for Islamist parties that together won more than 75 percent of the vote, ensuring their collective domination of the incoming assembly. Presidential elections are slated for mid-June, after which the military council has repeatedly vowed to relinquish executive authority.

Some revolutionary groups, too, oppose the planned demonstrations. Magdi Sherif, head of the Guardians of the Revolution, a political party established last year, also strenuously disagrees with those demanding an abrupt transfer of power.

“Despite some mistakes, the military council has managed to conduct free parliamentary elections that saw an unprecedented turnout,” Sherif told IPS. “Just because certain political trends – especially those that control most private media – aren’t happy with the results doesn’t mean they should jeopardise the entire electoral process by calling for another uprising.

“The military has certainly committed grave errors, but it has also laid down a clear timetable for the handover of authority,” he added. “If it still refuses to give up power after upcoming elections, then protesters can hit the streets – Tahrir Square will still be there.”

Many Egyptians opposed to Wednesday’s planned demonstrations also say that the country – still reeling from a year of unprecedented political turmoil – is in desperate need of security and stability more than anything else.

“Crime rates are rising (due largely to the nationwide withdrawal of police one year ago) and there are serious shortages of vital commodities such as butane, gasoline, even bread,” said Umm Ismail Ahmed, a 50-year-old housewife and mother of five, who, along with her children, participated in last year’s uprising. “Now we need a degree of calm, at least for a couple months, to deal with domestic problems.”

The ruling military council, meanwhile, plans to mark the revolution’s first anniversary with festivities in Tahrir Square, prompting fears of possible clashes between revolutionaries and celebrators.

The April 6 movement’s Maher, for his part, stressed the peaceful nature of the planned demonstrations. “All of the groups participating in the Tahrir Square protest are taking measures aimed at preventing clashes,” he said, stressing that April 6 members had been instructed to leave the area in the event of violence.

Like other Islamist parties, the Muslim Brotherhood – whose Freedom and Justice Party led in parliamentary polls – has stated its opposition to the scheduled protest. While the group will not participate in scheduled festivities either, it plans to maintain a presence in and around the flashpoint square with the stated aim of providing security.

“There will probably be more people demonstrating than celebrating,” predicted Rabie, “since several main revolutionary demands remain unfulfilled a full year later; since daily conditions still haven’t improved; since corrupt former regime officials still haven’t been prosecuted; and since families of slain protesters still haven’t been compensated.

“But it would be highly unfortunate if the event turned violent,” he added, “since this would only enflame the situation and lead to more chaos – the last thing Egypt needs at this critical juncture.”

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By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jan 19 2012 (IPS)

The Islamist landslide in recently concluded parliamentary polls has led to fears in some quarters of an impending paradigm shift in Egyptian foreign policy. Most local analysts, however, dismiss the likelihood of any sea changes, especially when it comes to the sensitive issues of Palestine and the Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

“An Islamist-led parliament is unlikely to make any major foreign policy realignments, especially in terms of the Palestine/Israel file,” Gamal Fahmi, political analyst and managing editor of Egyptian opposition weekly Al-Arabi Al-Nassiri told IPS.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak elections, the third and final round of which wrapped up last week, served to ensure Islamist domination of Egypt’s incoming parliament. According to preliminary results, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the ultra-conservative Salafist Nour Party are set to control more than 65 percent of the assembly, giving them unrivalled influence over Egypt’s future legislative environment.

Coming less than a year after the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak last February, the turn of events has led to fevered speculation that Egypt’s first Islamist-led parliament would hasten to abrogate the Camp David peace treaty. When polling kicked off in late November, Israeli Civil Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned that democratic elections in Egypt were likely to lead to “a grave erosion of (the Camp David) agreement.”

Signed in 1979, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty called for the return of the Sinai Peninsula – occupied by Israel in 1967 – to Egypt, in exchange for full diplomatic relations between the two countries. Jordan, which signed its own peace deal in 1994, remains the only other Arab country to officially recognise the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

But ongoing Israeli abuse of the Palestinian population – and the outrage this has engendered on the part of the Egyptian public – ensured that the official peace instituted by Camp David was never more than a cold one. Egyptian critics of the treaty also complain that the agreement tightly restricts Egyptian military deployments in the Sinai, effectively preventing authorities in Cairo from policing – or, if need be, protecting – the strategic peninsula.

In an indication of the issue’s sensitivity, one of the first statements issued by Egypt’s ruling military council following Mubarak’s ouster last year – in an obvious reference to Camp David – reiterated the transitional government’s “commitment to comply with all international treaties and conventions to which Egypt is signatory.”

Despite its longstanding opposition to Israeli policy, the Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly echoed this position since Egypt’s revolution – but has not ruled out the possibility that certain terms of the treaty might eventually be subject to amendment.

“The Brotherhood and the FJP are committed to complying with all international agreements signed by Egypt,” FJP Vice-President Essam al-Arian told IPS. “As for Camp David in particular, any future decision to amend the treaty will be put before a popular referendum for approval by the people.”

A recent poll by the Pew polling agency found that 54 percent of the Egyptian public stand in favour of the treaty’s annulment.

Egyptian political analysts, however, say the Brotherhood has no intention of pursuing any radical changes in terms of foreign policy, especially as it pertains to Palestine-Israel.

“This is the first time in Egypt’s history for Islamist parties to achieve a parliamentary majority, and they will therefore exercise extreme caution when it comes to maintaining their position,” Mohamed Abo Kraisha, political analyst and managing editor of state daily Al-Gomhouriya, told IPS. “They aren’t likely to do anything that might threaten their popular support base, or make any policy changes that might expose their newfound political clout to the threat of foreign interference or intimidation.”

“The last thing the Brotherhood wants is conflict with Israel,” agreed Fahmi. He went on to note that even Palestinian resistance faction Hamas – the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007 – “has maintained a ceasefire with Israel despite its longstanding refusal to recognise the Zionist state.

“Their language might become more assertive with their assumption of power, but they won’t make any dramatic foreign policy changes,” Fahmi added.

Abdel Ghani Hindi, coordinator of the Popular Committee for the Independence of Al-Azhar and leading member of the Union of Young Revolutionaries (which consists of several revolutionary youth movements established in the wake of the revolution), stressed that any foreign policy changes on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood would only be implemented incrementally.

“The Brotherhood might try to change the Egyptian position on certain sensitive issues, like the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip, but it will only do so very, very gradually,” Hindi told IPS. “It will be very cautious not to do anything that might bring it into conflict with the U.S.

“The Brotherhood and its allies just won an enormous share of parliament; it doesn’t want to risk losing the power it has waited decades to achieve,” he added. “The group will work to restore the country, politically and economically, after 30 years of autocratic rule before attempting any serious policy reorientations.”

Hindi believes that Salafist parties, too, despite their ultraconservative outlook and hard-line reputation, are unlikely to take any steps – at least in the short term – that might threaten the status quo in terms of Egypt-Israel relations.

“The Islamic scholars (ulema) that lead the Salafist movement are closely linked to the ruling dynasties of the Gulf, particularly the Saudis, who are themselves close allies of Washington,” said Hindi. “And since Israeli regional ascendancy represents a priority for Washington, I doubt the Saudi-backed Salafist parties would do anything to dramatically impact Egypt’s relations with Israel.”

Indeed, late last month, Nour Party spokesman Yosri Hammad declared the party’s intention to respect the treaty. “We do not object to the treaty; we believe Egypt is committed to all treaties signed by former governments,” he said. He added, however, that the party would use all legal means to amend “unfair clauses” in the agreement.

According to Abo Kraisha, the notion of ‘national sovereignty’ as it has traditionally been understood “no longer applies to contemporary international relations, especially as it applies to Israel.

“Even if Islamist parties wanted to make contentious policy changes, like cancelling Camp David or unilaterally opening the border with Gaza, the so-called ‘international community’ wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “Any radical changes made by Egypt in terms of its relations with Israel or Hamas would certainly be met with profound repercussions, even the possibility of foreign intervention.”

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