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Egypt anti-government protests grow

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wrt http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/members-constitutional-committee-50-announced
"The 50-member committee has said it prefers canceling three contingent articles: the interpretation of the principles of Islamic Sharia, the cancellation of the Shura Council and the 50 percent quota allocated to workers and farmers in parliament."
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Help me out here, the way the article is worded suggests the quota survived in Morsi's constitution in its rotten gerrymandered form susceptable to being packed with ruling party apparatchiks and large land barons whose interests are at conflict with the people it is supposed to represent?
 
Egypt decides to dissolve Brotherhood NGO

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army-backed government has decided to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood as a registered non-governmental organization, a state-run newspaper reported on Friday, pressing a crackdown on deposed President Mohamed Mursi's movement.

The decision applies to the NGO registered by the Brotherhood in March in response to a lawsuit that argued the group had no legal status.

It marks a mostly symbolic legal blow to Mursi's group as the authorities round up its members in the harshest crackdown in decades.

"The minister's decision has in fact been issued but it will be announced at the start of next week in a press conference," Al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Hany Mahana, spokesman for the minister of social solidarity, as sayin
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and news from yesterday:

British teenager loses leg in Cairo bomb attack

No one was killed in the attack, the first in the capital since Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president, was deposed in July. But more than 20 people were injured.
Among the most seriously injured was Deqa Hassan, 16, a British girl of Somali origin who lived in Brixton but has been at school in Egypt where she lives with her parents. Last month, after a visit to Dubai, she wrote on Twitter that she was afraid of returning to Egypt because of the violence there.
She was taken to the nearby Nasr Medical Insurance Hospital where her left leg was removed to her knee.
"I was walking with my friend and at the end of the street we heard the sound of an explosion," she said from her hospital bed. "I just hit the floor. People were screaming everywhere. It was very scary.
"Eventually two policemen walked up to us. We were screaming for help but they just walked away. It wasn't human."...
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The intended target was the minister for the interior Mohammed Ibrahim, I think it's reasonable to expect more bomb attacks.
 
the NGO bit is important in the first one - not because it means anything but because it clearly indicates (as if we need it any more) the army telling them the game is up. The free officers state is back in political control and for the MB to go back t its social work function and rebuild it will need to grovel for a long time then agree to play a certain role. Don't know if the excellent pessimistic piece in the new LRB has been posted yet, if not, do read.
 
butchersapron said:
the NGO bit is important in the first one - not because it means anything but because it clearly indicates (as if we need it any more) the army telling them the game is up. The free officers state is back in political control and for the MB to go back t its social work function and rebuild it will need to grovel for a long time then agree to play a certain role. Don't know if the excellent pessimistic piece in the new LRB has been posted yet, if not, do read.
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Really good article. The Muslim Brotherhood is broken. Salafi Hizb al-Nour came second in the elections are they going to take over their role?

The return with a vengeance of the Egyptian army to the centre of government doesn’t, as some have suggested, mean the advent of Mubarakism without Mubarak, since the extreme autonomy of the presidency is no more – this will be true even if Sisi takes the job. Moreover, an important element of Mubarak’s prolonged balancing act was his tacit reliance on the Muslim Brothers to provide needed services and to keep order in those parts of society the state could or would no longer bother itself with. That compact is now broken. Whether there will be a substantive as opposed to purely rhetorical reversion to Nasserism in domestic policy remains to be seen – but it’s unlikely. Reliance on Saudi money and Israeli co-operation would seem to rule it out in foreign affairs, unless the full recovery of Egyptian sovereignty in the Sinai becomes a genuine objective of the army.
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Its hard to call, how do you mean take over their role? If you mean will they be hoping to pick up disenfranchised members and votes, in the first instance its unlikely they have traditionally had a turbulent relationship with the muslim brotherhood culminating in violent clashes on campus,any mass enrolment of former mb members may well be viewed with both suspicion and enmity.
if you mean the latter it is a matter of wait and see, al-nour until have a longstanding policy of non participation in democratic procedure which they view as unislamic,coupled with their support and participation for morsi's ousters means the rump of the MB faithful will likely view A-N as wreckers and traitors.

What that means in the long term is do Al-Nour believe they have more to gain inside or outside the democratic process? At the moment most of their leverage, in for instance the 50 man constitution redrafting negotiations comes from exploiting that uncertainty in order to gain favourable concessions.Their non participation in upcoming elections would mean that the two parties that polled over 65% of the presidential vote would be unrepresented at the forthcoming election.

At the end of the day it comes down to a judgement call, Al-Nour see the democratic process as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, they will look to what happened to morsi in power and the political compromises he had to make and how quickly the SSI turned upon him when he began implementing what al nour would consider their long term goals sharia, shura and all that.Worth remembering,in the coming days that Al-Nour are more hardline with regards to the role of women and religious minorities.

If on the other hand you mean take on the role of Bogeyman to justify further repression this is unlikely as the remnants of mb and emerging Sinai nationalist groups are likely to be more than adequate to push any necessary security measures through parliament.

If you mean in their role as providers of social welfare for the disenfranchised then that is something that both groups consider core to their tenets, it is where much of their rivalry emanates from and where they derive much of their support and where they have the most to gain in the vacuum caused by the forced implosion of the MB.

so yes,no and maybe though not necessarily in that order!
 
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possibly a repost from last year but a long and informative article about the fractious relationship between Al Nour and the Muslim Brotherhood

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/502/32/Muslim Brothers and Salafis.aspx

In the past, the Salafis (al-nour)had never formulated a political project or platform. Prior to the revolution, their efforts and those of their societies and associations were devoted to proselytising and charity work. They had no political experience, and the public had never regarded them as a political player capable of promoting a coherent political vision and producing the type of officials capable of managing the affairs of the state.

However, by partially identifying with the Nahda Project that served as the Brotherhood’s campaign platform and entering into calculated alliances with the Brothers on certain political positions, they succeeded in persuading a broad segment of the public that they had the necessary political skills. The task was not that difficult, since they realised that Egyptian public opinion in general did not differentiate in any meaningful way between the Salafis and Muslim Brothers. To the vast majority of Egyptians, who would never have read the articles by specialists, the two sides formed a single indivisible group, rather than two distinct movements.

For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood had closely studied how to turn the Salafis into an asset for itself. It knew that the Salafis had the ability to attract broad grassroots support for Brotherhood ideas, and so, in an exercise of consummate pragmatism, it entered into tactical alliances with the Salafis on certain major issues. A prime case in point was when the Brotherhood and the Salafis joined forces against the Egyptian left and liberals in the 19 March 2011 referendum on the constitutional amendments that laid the groundwork for the Brotherhood’s eventual arrival in power.

Khairat Al-Shater, whom many regard as the de facto leader of the Brotherhood, forms the hidden link between the Brothers and an influential portion of the Salafist movement. What makes this link so strong is that Al-Shater himself is strongly inclined to hardline Salafist thought and, indeed, some Salafis consider him to be one of their own even if he is a senior Brotherhood official. His preferred tool has been the Islamic Law Organisation for Rights and Reform, which he has used to generate Salafist backing for the Brotherhood.



But the Brotherhood has also used the Salafis in another manner. When Brotherhood interests dictate, the Salafis become the Brotherhood’s bogeyman, much in the manner in which the former Mubarak regime used the spectre of the Brotherhood itself to alarm public opinion at home and abroad in order to perpetuate the regime’s hold on power.

The Brotherhood has proven itself equally successful in this regard. Western officials have said on numerous occasions that they have no objections to working constructively with the Brotherhood, which they have come to describe as a “moderate” religious force with which it is possible to reach understandings that will safeguard Western interests. After seeing and hearing the opinions and behaviour of many Salafis, large segments of public opinion have been willing to indulge the Muslim Brotherhood’s excesses on the grounds that the “Brotherhood’s hell is better than the Salafis’ heaven.”

I can see how pragmatists in the foreign office might look to flip the coin with Al-Nour being recast as the "moderate religious force" and the brotherhood the bogeymen,especially given the close working relationship they are developing with the Saudis with regards to Syria ect
 
FNG said:
if you mean the latter it is a matter of wait and see, al-nour until have a longstanding policy of non participation in democratic procedure which they view as unislamic,coupled with their support and participation for morsi's ousters means the rump of the MB faithful will likely view A-N as wreckers and traitors.

What that means in the long term is do Al-Nour believe they have more to gain inside or outside the democratic process? At the moment most of their leverage, in for instance the 50 man constitution redrafting negotiations comes from exploiting that uncertainty in order to gain favourable concessions.Their non participation in upcoming elections would mean that the two parties that polled over 65% of the presidential vote would be unrepresented at the forthcoming election.

At the end of the day it comes down to a judgement call, Al-Nour see the democratic process as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, they will look to what happened to morsi in power and the political compromises he had to make and how quickly the SSI turned upon him when he began implementing what al nour would consider their long term goals sharia, shura and all that.Worth remembering,in the coming days that Al-Nour are more hardline with regards to the role of women and religious minorities.

If on the other hand you mean take on the role of Bogeyman to justify further repression this is unlikely as the remnants of mb and emerging Sinai nationalist groups are likely to be more than adequate to push any necessary security measures through parliament.

If you mean in their role as providers of social welfare for the disenfranchised then that is something that both groups consider core to their tenets, it is where much of their rivalry emanates from and where they derive much of their support and where they have the most to gain in the vacuum caused by the forced implosion of the MB.

so yes,no and maybe though not necessarily in that order!
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Thanks FNG. I was thinking of the latter.

Al-Nour stood in the elections so it's not beyond belief that they'll do it again. If the opportunity arises.
 
thank you,hopefully i have conveyed successfully my opinion that its not a simple matter of the brotherhood switching hats and carrying on as before.The real problem and it transcends Egypt and the middle east, as the pattern can be found throughout Sub Sahara Afric and Asia including large parts of the rapidly growing economies of India and China is the disparity in wealth transfer away from rural to urban areas.

Fanon correctly identified the emergence of urbanised elites that exploit and remove net worth in agriculture (cash crops)/mining mineral/human resources (the migration of the brightest and healthiest workers from rural to urban environments).These elites he foresaw would follow their colonial predecessors traditional exploitative model of chronic underinvestment in education and welfare in rural areas would create a void that would be filled by religious institutions, in egypt this became the Brotherhood and Al-Nour,(in other parts of the 3rd world by not only Islamic organisations but also in India for example by Hindu Revivalist and Christian missions).

Now what that means for Egypt is illiteracy rates in rural parts of Upper Egypt for young males/females of 21.7%/42.9% respectively compared to 10%/20% of their regional urban counterparts.Even in the relatively prosperous north Lower Egypt with its access to the Mediterranean rural illiteracy rates are roughly twice that of urban areas.Of those that have received any schooling in rural areas the majority will have come through a madrassa type system with a large amount of religious indoctrination.
equally stark are the statistics for rural infant mortality and childbirth deaths and deaths from preventable illnesses during the Mubarak era,the supposed champion of secularist Egyptian values.Compounded to that was his disastrous for many subsistence farmers was his dabbling with quasi-liberal land reforms at the behest of the IMF which saw land dispossessions increase tenfold.

Fanon's optimistic believe that the urban rural divide would create the conditions for the emergence of a pure revolutionary conscious class from the peasants has failed to materialise in Egypt,where the post 52 revolutionary struggle has had its roots in the strike action of the urbanised workers. On the contrary the urban rural divide in the post fanon era has seen the emergence of a socially conservative rural body politic that is ill prepared for modernisation thus suspicious of liberalisation and economic reform.

This is the almost insurmountable challenge posed to both the revolutionary left and their secularist liberal allies in making gains in any upcoming election before Al-nour consolidate their position and potentially strike a pact with Sisi and deliver Sisi's vision of a hybrid IslamiC Militarist regime mentioned http://www.arabnews.com/news/461188]here[/url]

Little is known about El-Sisi’s political views, but an article published in Foreign Affairs last month refers to a thesis written by him in 2006 while studying at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania. The article, by military expert Robert Springborg, suggests that El-Sisi favors a political system that is “a hybrid regime that would combine Islamism with militarism” and that he links acceptance of democracy to support of religious leaders and respect of the country’s religious beliefs. Springborg concludes that El-Sisi’s “true goal might not be the establishment of a more inclusive, secular democracy but, rather, a military-led resurrection and reformation of the Islamist project that the Brotherhood so abysmally mishandled.”
He points to a quote in El-Sisi’s thesis that reads: “For democracy to be successful in the Middle East,” it must show “respect to the religious nature of the culture” and seek “public support from religious leaders (who) can help build strong support for the establishment of democratic systems.” He goes on to write: “Democracy cannot be understood in the Middle East without an understanding of the concept of Al Khilafa,” or the caliphate.
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ofi
http://www.cesr.org/downloads/egypt WEB FINAL.pdf
 
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I'm weeks out of date and will try to catch up soon. One story I did see recently is that Egypt has returned $2 billion to Qatar since they are no longer buddies and negotiations to turn the loan into bonds broke down.
 
A court has banned MB activities and ordered their assets seized.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/09/2013923123314188.html

A new minimum wage for public sector workers has been announced. A minimum wage for the private sector is still under negotiation.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsCon...-minimum-wage-Crunching-a-squeezed-budge.aspx

Earlier this month the Tamarod leader that I kept bitching about apparently survived an assassination attempt:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...d-founder-survives-assassination-attempt.html
 
Al Nour have deceided not to run a candidate in the Presidential election preferring to concentrate on the parliamentary elections instead.Coquettishly suggesting they'd like a strong man for president preferably one supposes with a good sense of humour.

Senior members of The National Salvation Front have already indicated they are not opposed to a candidate with a military background. Sisi has so far indicated his reluctance to stand and the military has insisted they have no intention of fielding a candidate though Gen. Sami Anan and Gen. Ahmad Shafiq are being touted as potential candidates.

Other NSF developments twelve of the constituent parties of the NSF are preposing to form two Syriza style coalition groups to contest the forthcoming elections one comprising the liberals and the other the socialists.
 
New 'anti-Brotherhood, anti-military' front launched to 'achieve revolution goals'

A new front, dubbed "Revolution Path Front" aimed at providing an alternative to the current "polarisation" between the military and Muslim Brotherhood has been launched on Tuesday in a press conference attended by tens of leading political figures, activists and groups.
"It has been two-and-a-half years since the revolution began and Egyptians have not yet achieved their dream of building a new republic that will provide them with democracy, justice and equality," according to the front's founding statement read by prominent leftist-economist Wael Gamal.

"Millions have taken to the streets twice; once in January 2011 to topple Mubarak's regime, which was based on corruption and oppression… and a second time in June 2013, forcing Mohamed Morsi to step down after losing legitimacy as a result of the Brotherhood's attempts to monopolise political life and rebuild an oppressive system," the statement added.

The aim of the front, explained Gamal, is to work for the redistribution of wealth, achieve social justice, combat the formation of an oppressive regime, achieve equality between citizens, set the path for transitional justice and adopt foreign policies that guarantee national independence.

The call for an "Egyptian Bill of Rights," will be one of many campaigns the front aims at developing, and will include collecting at least one million signatures on a rights document that will stipulate the desired civil, economic, political and cultural rights of Egyptians. ...
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Presidential spokesperson Ihab Badawy said that Interim President Adly Mansour signed into law on Sunday the controversial law that restricts protests.

In an effort to control dissent after chaotic protests following the ouster in July of former President Mohamed Morsy, the new interim government has put the law in place to regulate public meetings, processions and peaceful demonstrations.

The law requires the notification of the Interior Ministry before organizing demonstrations. Should the ministry reject, the organizers can resort to a judge of urgent matters. It does not require to place cordons around demonstrations, but sets fines for organizers without permission.

The move has been criticized by human rights groups. On Friday, 19 Egyptian right groups issued a joint statement, saying the law restricts freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

“The draft law seeks to criminalize all forms of peaceful assembly, including demonstrations and public meetings, and gives the state free hand to disperse peaceful gatherings by use of force,” read the statement.
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http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/interim-president-adly-mansour-signs-controversial-protests-law
 
Wish there was something good to say but the counter-revolution is in full swing as summed up in this blog post by Juan Cole:

Egypt’s Counter-Revolution: 21 Women and Girls Harshly Sentenced, Liberal Bloggers to be Arrested

The new anti-protest law in Egypt is roiling the country. On Thursday, a student at Cairo University was killed by police using live ammunition against a student demonstration.

Youth leaders of the 2011 revolution are now also being targeted for calling for demonstrations against the law, including Ahmad Maher of April 6 and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah. Maher and other members of the left of center April 6 youth organization had also been prosecuted for protesting by the deposed government of Muhammad Morsi.

On Wednesday, an Egyptian court sentenced 11 adult women to 14 years in prison for protesting, and the teenaged girls arrested with them (one 15) were ordered to juvenile prison until they turn 21. They are members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s military-backed government, which deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammad Morsi on July 3, has just passed a Draconian anti-protest law. Ironically, it has much in common with a law proposed by the deposed government of Morsi, which also prosecuted protesters....
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With reference to Alaa Abdel Fattah, despite his clearly stating that he would hand himself in on Saturday this has just been tweeted by a number of people:

LeilZahra: Alert: Egyptian activist @Alaa Abd El Fattah has just been arrested from his house, computers/phones confiscated, his partner beaten #Egypt
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I see prominent activists have been sent down under the new protest laws.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25484064

Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel were found guilty of organising a recent unauthorised protest.

They were arrested after protesting in November over a new controversial law that restricts demonstrations.
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State-run television said the men had been sentenced to three years' hard labour. They have also been ordered to pay a $7,000 (£4,000) fine each.

As the verdict was read out, the courtroom erupted with chants of "Down, down with military rule! We are in a state, not in a military camp", Reuters news agency reports.

Until recently, the main targets for arrests by the authorities had been Islamists, many of whom continue to protest over the ousting by the military of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed government of Mohammed Morsi in the summer after weeks of mass protests.

But recently dozens of liberal activists have been rounded up, our correspondent says.
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More from me later when I've done a little more research.
 
At the moment my 'research' consists simply of going back to the initial period after Morsi was removed, and seeing which of those activists who have now been jailed were suckers for the coup.

For starters:

Ahmed Maher, a founder of the left-leaning April 6 group, initially joined a small volunteer team that tried to enlist Western support for the ouster. But after the arrests and shootings of Brotherhood supporters, he began to recall the generals’ long hold on power after mass protests drove President Hosni Mubarak from office two years ago.

Mr. Maher put his worries about the generals in a Twitter message to another activist: “If we assume it’s not a coup, and I tell people it’s not a coup, when they screw us again like they did in 2011, what would I tell people?”

His allies responded by trying to drum him out, not only from the volunteer team but also from the April 6 group. Esraa Abdel Fattah, a prominent activist, campaigned against him in the media and circulated a list of his statements questioning the “coup.” And Ms. Abdel Fattah insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political party won the post-Mubarak elections, amounted to a foreign-backed terrorist group.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/world/middleeast/egypt-morsi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Back to the present, and the April 6th movement have just pulled out of the transitional roadmap in the face of these sentences. That they only just did so speaks volumes about how far they bent over to accommodate the military agenda until now. They had plenty to moan about and sometimes did, but they went along with the broad agenda despite ample indication that the coup and all that followed would not just be used against islamists.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsCon...hdraws-support-from-postMorsi-roadmap,-p.aspx

“The roadmap included procedures that would provide transitional justice. However, the actions of the regime only reflect a justice of revenge against activists and icons of the revolution,” Amr Ali, general coordinator of April 6, said during a press conference Sunday.

Ali added that the roadmap is now useless due to the oppressive tactics adopted by interim authorities.

“We now announce the death of the roadmap … What is pursued by the current regime is a coup against the January 25 Revolution and its goals,” he added.
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