Big protests planned against Morsi in Egypt Sunday

The State Department has not responded to online posts claiming Egypt’s US Ambassador Anne Patterson is pressuring Coptic Christians to not attend protests against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi scheduled to start this Sunday.

There are a few sites including Gateway Pundit and Big Peace who have picked up on this. From the Huffington Post.

More than 100,000 supporters of Egypt’s Islamist president staged a show of force Friday ahead of massive protests later this month by the opposition, chanting “Islamic revolution!” and warning of a new and bloody bout of turmoil.

Oh, that sounds really promising.

Friday’s mass gathering was ostensibly called by Islamists to denounce violence, but it took on the appearance of a war rally instead. Participants, many of them bearded and wearing robes or green bandanas, vowed in chants to protect President Mohammed Morsi against his opponents. Some who addressed the crowd spoke of smashing opposition protesters on June 30, the anniversary of Morsi’s assumption of power.

“We want to stress that we will protect the legitimacy with our blood and souls,” declared Mohammed el-Beltagy, a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic group from which Morsi hails.

So we have groups like the Coptic Christians – and many others it seems – who want to go to Tahrir Square on June 30 (Sunday) to demand the ouster of Morsi and there are some reports these protests could be much larger than the Arab Spring protests that brought down then-president Hosni Mubarak. From the Denver Post.

What began as a humble campaign of disillusioned young protesters taking to the streets with pen and paper, Tamarod, or ‘ rebellion’, now says it has amassed more than 15 million signatures against the president and is leading calls for massive anti-government demonstrations on June 30. …

The petition’s signatories cite a range of grievances, from Egypt’s faltering economy and political paralysis, to fuel shortages, rising food prices and a lack of security. Others like Naguib say the abuse and repression that persisted under Mubarak have continued, making the fight profoundly personal.

“He has done nothing, he’s only helped his own people,’ Naguib, who is a member of the Tamarod coordinating committee, said from the downtown Cairo apartment that serves as their headquarters.

Naguib says she was shot in the back while protesting during Egypt’s 18-day uprising in 2011. “We will finish our revolution,’ she said.

From Big Peace, which references the Patterson’s strong suggestion the Copts do not attend the protest.

FrontPageMag.com notes that in the  June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad, Patterson asked the Coptic Church’s Pope Tawadros, “to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood. Coptic. Egyptian Christians, who are just 10 percent of the country’s 85 million people, have long been persecuted in Egypt, but violent attacks against Christians have risen sharply since Morsi came to power in 2011.

Egyptian demonstrators claim to have collected 15 million signatures against Morsi, Voice of America reports. The “Rebel” movement aims to force an early presidential election if Morsi will not resign.

If it was right before, why is  it not right now? Either the Obama administration is concerned about a blood-bath perpetuated by the Morsi Muslim Brotherhood currently in power, or they are supporting – in full – Morsi and suggesting the Copts shut up and continue to take the abuse. (Just one example here.)

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

1 Comment

  1. Dimsdale on June 28, 2013 at 10:13 am

    I suspect that these crowds will be subdued by means more egregious than anything Mubarak would have conceived…



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