1 Jul 2013

Egypt protests: army gives 48-hour ultimatum

The head of the Egyptian armed forces says the country’s political parties must find a solution to street protests in the next two days or the military will step in.

In a statement read on state television, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said if the parties failed to respond, the military would offer its own “road map for the future”. He said protests calling for President Mohamed Morsi to resign were an “unprecedented” expression of the popular will.

Earlier, protesters stormed and ransacked the Cairo headquarters of President Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group.

Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman at the scene said protesters managed to breach the compound’s defences and storm the six-storey building.

They later carted off furniture, files, rugs, blankets, air conditioning units, a kitchen sink and portraits of Morsi.

One protester emerged with a pistol and handed it over to a policeman outside.

Footage on local TV networks showed smashed windows, blackened walls and smoke billowing out of the heavily fortified villa.

A fire was still raging on one floor hours after the building was stormed.

Eight ‘killed’ in clashes

One protester tore down the Muslim Brotherhood sign from the building’s front wall, while another hoisted Egypt’s red, black and white flag out an upper-story window and waved it in the air in triumph.

The Brotherhood’s headquarters, located in the eastern district of Cairo of Muqatam, had been the scene of clashes since Sunday evening between armed Morsi supporters barricaded inside the building and young protesters.

Security officials said at least eight protesters were killed in the violence.

Four Egyptian ministers have also resigned from the government, a cabinet official has said.

“Four ministers presented their resignations today,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

He gave no reason but the state news agency had earlier said the ministers were considering resigning in sympathy with the protesters.

The four were Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou, Communication and Information Technology Atef Helmi, Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Hatem Bagato and Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Khaled Abdel-Aal.

Morsi, the most populous Arab state’s first freely elected leader, has stayed out of sight throughout the protests but acknowledged through a spokesman that he had made mistakes while adding that he was working to fix them and was open to dialogue.

Morsi’s critics view the Brotherhood headquarters as the seat of real power in Egypt, consistently claiming that the Islamist group’s spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie and his powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shater, were the ones actually calling the shots in the country, not the president.

The Brotherhood has in recent weeks fortified the building’s walls in anticipation of the massive opposition protests in which millions took part on Sunday in a display of anger and frustration with the Islamist leader on the anniversary of his inauguration.

At least 15 people were killed in clashes on Sunday, including eight in front of the Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters, and hundreds injured. Egypt’s state television put the death toll at 16. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

On Monday, anti-Morsi protesters were gearing up for a second day of demonstrations.

Some protesters spent the night in dozens of tents pitched in the capital’s central Tahrir Square and in front of the president’s Ittihadiya Palace. They have vowed to stay there until Morsi resigns. The president’s supporters, meanwhile, continued their sit-in in front of a major mosque in another part of Cairo.

The anti-Morsi demonstrators are calling for widespread labour strikes to start on Monday in an attempt to ratchet up the pressure on the president, but it was not immediately clear whether unions would respond to the call.

Organisers are also calling for sit-ins at the cabinet building, interim parliament, and another presidential place where Morsi has been working since late last week.

The massive outpouring against Morsi raises the question of what comes next. Protesters have vowed to stay on the streets until he steps down. The president, in turn, appears to be hoping protests wane.

For weeks, Morsi’s supporters have depicted the planned protest as a plot by Mubarak loyalists. But their claims were undermined by the extent of Sunday’s rallies.

In Cairo and a string of cities in the Nile Delta and on the Mediterranean coast, the protests topped even the biggest protests of the 2011’s 18-day uprising, including the day Mubarak quit, Feb. 11, when giant crowds marched on Ittihadiya.

It is unclear now whether the opposition, which for months has demanded Morsi form a national unity government, would now accept any concessions short of his removal.

The anticipated deadlock raises the question of whether the army, already deployed on the outskirts of cities, will intervene. Protesters believe the military would throw its weight behind them, tipping the balance against Morsi.

The country’s police, meanwhile, were hardly to be seen Sunday. In the lead-up to Sunday, some officers angrily told their commanders they would not protect the Brotherhood from protesters, complaining that police are always caught in the middle, according to video of the meeting released online.