The second broken promise was appointing three Vice Presidents including a Coptic, a woman, and a young revolutionary leader, which again he did not do.
The third broken promise was that he would form a national united government. One week after being in office he appointed a Muslim Brotherhood ally, Counselor Ahmed Mekky as Vice President. After that, he appointed another Muslim Brotherhood ally, Dr. Hisham Kandeel as Prime Minister of the new government.
The most disastrous thing Morsi did was to appoint new Muslim Brotherhood members to the Constitution drafting assembly and exclude secular political parties, Christians, Sinai people, minorities, and women. He then compelled Al Azhar, “the biggest Islamic institution in the world,” to supervise legislation, which was widely viewed as a step towards turning Egypt into a theocratic state—a Sunni version of Iran.
The constitutional declaration (of Nov. 22, 2012) allowed Morsi to (seize) all powers. He appointed a Muslim Brotherhood member as the public persecutor, which allowed Morsi to hunt down his opponents. Many politicians were sent to jail because of illegal allegations against them.
While Morsi was drafting the Constitution in his own way, the Education Minister, another member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was editing materials for Egypt’s elementary schools to include codes by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Imam Hassan el-Banna. Also being included was the indoctrination that the opposition groups were enemies of Egypt and the true national identity was with the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi was attempting to change the core identity of Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood group were the ones who initiated violence, not the Egyptian people. In November 2012, there was a peaceful sit-in in front of the presidential palace and Muslim Brotherhood militia attacked the demonstrators. Seven people were killed and hundreds were injured. They tortured political activists and used mosques as their own prison. They initiated the violence on the Egyptian society.
The next move was on the second Anniversary of the January 25th Revolution, Egyptians took to the streets demanding the full achievement of revolution’s demands—freedom, dignity, and social justice. The Minister of the Interior, yet another Muslim Brotherhood ally, used extreme violence against protesters; as a result of this systematic violence, 59 people were killed, 2,300 people were injured, and more than 500 people were imprisoned.
In the months following these actions, Muslim Brotherhood militias began to hunt down political activists related to the opposition, both physically and politically—even those who had supported Morsi in run-offs against General Shafik.
In March, Egyptians decided to give a clear message to the Supreme Council of the Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt will not turn into a theocratic state like Iran. They sent the message by demonstrating peacefully, but again the Muslim Brotherhood clashed violently with demonstrators in front of their headquarters in Moqqatm.
The Egyptian public realized the Muslim Brotherhood is not qualified to run a state. The Muslim Brotherhood government couldn’t solve the electric power shortage, couldn’t solve the fuel shortage, couldn’t stop inflation, and couldn’t provide people with basic needs for life. This was the turning point in the political scene in Egypt: the poor people, the middle class, and the higher class began to believe the only solution for the situation in Egypt was the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood regime. At this time, a revolutionary young group started a campaign called Rebellion—Tamurd. The main objective of this campaign was to call for an expression of “no confidence” in President Morsi.
The campaign collected almost 22 million petitions against Morsi, double the votes that he got in the run-offs. Tamurd, Egyptian opposition, minorities, and Egyptian middle class decided to make a last stand against the fascism of the Muslim Brotherhood. On June 30, 33 million Egyptian people took to the streets to demand the downfall of Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group; and show to the whole world that Egyptians would never surrender their country to a fascist group like the Muslim Brotherhood.
The day after the protest, the Army sent an ultimatum to President Morsi saying he had to achieve the demands of the people. The next day, Morsi took the stage and instead of listening to the Egyptian people, he threatened everyone, saying he would use violence to keep his position. The Army was inclined to the Egyptian people and fulfilled their responsibility to protect the Egyptian people and met with all opposition leaders, including Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and prepared a roadmap for the future of Egypt.
Muslim Brotherhood propaganda in the western media tried to show the world that what happened in Egypt was not a real revolution, it was just a coup undertaken by the Army. As a result of this the Obama Administration and his American Ambassador in Egypt, Anne Patterson, threatened to cut funds and military aid to the new government formed by the Egyptian people. At this time, Muslim Brotherhood leaders are gathering their militia to clash with Egyptian people and the Army in a suicidal attempt to take over the country again.
President Obama, why do you stand with the Muslim Brotherhood instead of the whole Egyptian people? You are putting the country in an infinite cycle of violence.
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Mohamed Soliman is one of the Egyptian opposition leaders and a leader of the Egyptian youth “June 30 Movement.” Cutting Edge