Powerful army chief Gen. Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi showed up smiling at a broadcasted national police
academy graduation on Sunday, less than 24 hours after at least 72
pro-Morsi protesters were shot to death by Egyptian security forces.
Instead of being criticized for what the Muslim Brotherhood and some in
the international community have deemed a massacre, Sisi was honored
with a standing ovation. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim referred to
the general as “Egypt’s devoted son,” promising a cheering crowd that he
would accept “the people's mandate” to fight terrorism in a
military-led “new dawn.”
The morning after the brutal
killings at Cairo’s main Islamist sit-in outside of Rabaa Mosque, most
Egyptian television channels and newspapers either failed to report on
the fatalities or blamed the Muslim Brotherhood entirely, applauding Sisi for his valiant work.
The
scene at Rabaa on Saturday looked nothing like what Egypt’s media, or
its leaders, described. Inside of the field hospital, doctors
desperately tried to save the lives of dozens of protesters, many of
whom seemed to have died from bullet wounds to the head and
chest—although the interior minister says no live fire was used. As the
battered corpses were lined up in a blood-soaked room, friends and
family members came to identify their loved ones, gasping for air
between sobs.
As
the bodies were moved from the ambulances, the names of the victims
were read aloud so that all could hear. “Ahmad Said,” a man shouted, the
limp body of a young medical student emerging, wrapped in a white sheet
in accordance with Islamic tradition.
One
woman silently wept, staring up at the sky. Her beige niqab (a
conservative Islamic headdress that shows only the eyes) was stained
from hours of crying. A medic standing close to her wore both a
stethoscope and a gas mask around her neck—she seemed to be in shock. A
man with blood-splattered medical gloves on held a Quran high above his
head. The black band on his head read, "There is no god but God.
Muhammad is the messenger of God."
A man with blood-splattered medical gloves on held a Quran high above his head.
But
with such unfaltering support of Sisi and the security forces among
much of the Egyptian population, and a deeply rooted hatred for Morsi
and his failed politics, sympathy for those killed at Rabaa was scarce.
Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood was accused of capitalizing on the
bloodshed.
After
the military removed Morsi from power, a crackdown on his allies and
supporters has ensued, in addition to hardline security measures enacted
by the Interior Ministry that have some activists and international
leaders questioning the intentions of the interim government.
Late
Sunday night, two leaders of the Wasat Party, a pro-Morsi moderate
Islamist group formed by Muslim Brotherhood defectors, were arrested and
sent to Tora Prison, where Mubarak is held and Morsi is also rumored to
be sent soon.
Wasat
Party head Aboul-Ela Madi was publicly critical of the transitional
government and was banned—along with dozens of other Islamists—from
traveling outside Egypt following Morsi’s ouster. The party’s vice
president, Essam Sultan, had previously been charged with insulting
State Security Council judges in press interviews.
“The
charges raise the specter of a zero-sum ideological crackdown of the
Muslim Brotherhood,” Michael Wahid Hanna, an Egyptian-American senior
fellow at the Century Foundation, told The Daily Beast. “Egypt cannot
have a functioning and stable civilian-led political process if critical
Islamist voices far removed from violence don't have a place in the
political process.”
Calling
the arrests “ominous,” he said the crackdown could be a personal attack
on the leaders due to their public criticism of the security sector.
“It's
ironic that just last summer Aboul-Ela Madi complained bitterly about
the monopolistic aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood and their inability
to cooperate or communicate with other political factions,” Hanna said.
“But as the political crisis deepened, particularly with respect to the
Constitution, Wasat found itself essentially indistinguishable from the
Muslim Brotherhood.”
The
two leaders’ detainment follows a slew of arrests of Muslim Brotherhood
and Islamist figures that world leaders, including U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry, have condemned.
The
European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Catherin Ashton, headed to Cairo
on Monday in an attempt to mediate bitterly divided political forces.
She is set to meet both members of the interim government and of the
deposed Freedom and Justice Party, formerly led by Morsi. She plans to
pressure the Egyptian government into agreeing upon “a fully inclusive
transition process, taking in all political groups, including the Muslim
Brotherhood.”
On
Saturday, the interior minister also announced the reinstatement of
departments that will monitor political and religious activities,
calling their closure following the 2011 revolution a “mistake.”
Outspoken groups, such as the rebel Tamarod campaign, which has up until
now whole-heartedly supported the military and its call to rally
against terrorism, say they will not accept the “witch hunt of political
activists under any pretext.”
“The
reinstatement of the departments is worrying,” said influential
Egyptian blogger Ghaly Shafik, who tweets and writes under the name “The
Big Pharaoh,” in an interview with The Daily Beast.
“Such
tactics should end no matter who is running the country. Cracking down
on the Muslim Brotherhood will only make them stronger.”
The
Anti Coup Alliance, led by Morsi supporters, announced in a press
release Monday that it would march with coffins following evening
prayers to security-administration buildings “to condemn the criminal
acts and the firing of live ammunition by the Interior Ministry at
peaceful demonstrators,” followed by a Tuesday million-man march
honoring the Rabaa “martyrs.”
The
decision comes following the military’s harsh warning to protesters
that those approaching army facilities could be killed after Islamist
protesters were reported marching to the intelligence headquarters early
Monday morning chanting: “Our blood and souls we sacrifice for Morsi.”
source:thedailybeast
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