Just like in April 2008, and 25 January 2011, both Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church, the two main arms of the state’s religious establishment, have come out to denounce the calls for general strike and civil disobedience planned on 11 February 2012.
Add to the list of course, the Muslim Brotherhood. Their leadership did not endorse the 6 April 2008 strike, neither did they endorse the 25 January 2011 protests (they only officially lent support to the revolution on its fourth day), and now are they are denouncing the calls for this coming 11 February strike.
Thousands of protesters descended on the parliament today, calling for the continuation of the revolution, the execution of Field Marshal Tantawi, the prosecution of the SCAF generals, as well as social demands related to the renationalization of privatized factories, self management and setting a national minimum wage of at least LE1,200.
The protesters also denounced the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of “selling out the revolution.” Mohamed Badie, the group’s “supreme guide” received the lion share of the demonstrators’ wrath. The Brothers mobilized hundreds of their supporters to form human chains in front of the parliament entrances, in front of the police troops. The Brothers chanted against the revolutionaries, asserting that “legitimacy now stems from the parliament, not from the (Tahrir) square.” Minor scuffles took place. Lawyer Malek Adly said the Brothers kidnapped a protesters and handed him over to the police.
You can check out some more pix from today on my flickr…
The Islamist forces, without exception, are now against the sit-ins in Tahrir, Suez, Alexandria and elsewhere in the country. And I mean here the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis, Gamaa Islamiya and even the pathetic intellectuals of the “moderate” Wassat Party. All are singing praise of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (read: Mubarak’s army generals), describing the sit-ins and protests as “chaos”, “conspiracy from abroad”, “work of thugs”, “counterrevolution”, bla bla bla .. in a language that is no different from what State Security Police used to do during the uprising, and what the military continues to do till today.
No wonder the shabab in Tahrir kicked out Sheikh Safwat Hegazi (the Islamist preacher with MB roots who supported the uprising strongly but was more than happy to become a SCAF lackey later) when he showed up at the square two nights ago, accusing him of opportunism and being an agent of SCAF.
Moreover, Sawasiya, a “human rights center” which was founded by the Muslim Brothers and has been headed by the MB senior lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud, has called for a counter-Tahrir protest and march in Heliopolis today…
A call for a parallel demonstration in Cairo’s Roxy Square to that in Tahrir Square on Friday has come out on Facebook. The event is planned to march to the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) against the continued sit-in in Tahrir.
A statement released by the Sawasiya Legal Centre, which has initiated the call, declares that the sit-in in Tahrir Square “imposes the demands of a minor category that does not represent the majority of the Egyptian people.” The statement goes on to denounce the “shameless attempts that seek to create division between the people and their military forces.”
Shame on them. I will not sing this stupid hymn of “national unity.” It’s time to make a clear stand, distinguish who’s for the revolution and who has decided to side with the counterrevolution… And the Islamist forces leaders are clearly on the side of the counterrevolutionary generals. I hope the Islamist youth, those who defied their leaders’ orders and took part in the uprising, will wake up and know what sort of opportunists run their organizations.
Tens of thousands of protesters flock to Tahrir Square on Friday, staging a sit in, calling for the continuation of the revolution… Similar protests took place simultaneously in other cities.
This is a very interesting video from Suez, shot by journalist and friend Soheir Abaza. Some guy, she identified as a salafi, was giving a rhetorical empty speech, then tried to stir the public into chanting: “We neither want a communist nor Jewish state, We want an Islamic state.” But as you can see from the video, very few people repeated the chants after him, and then he was hushed by the youth.
The local press and tweeps have been also reporting that the Muslim Brothers tried to convince the protesting families of martyrs to suspend their sit-in, only to be rebuked.
Protesters kick out Muslim Brotherhood members from the anti-police protests on Friday, in Alexandria. The demonstrators are angry over the MBs collaboration with the military council as well as the group’s dismissive attitude towards protests post-Mubarak’s ousting.
While the Revolutionary Socialists and the independentunions are pushing for the dissolution of the corrupt, state-backed, Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions, the Muslim Brothers are calling for “purging” the federation, as if this hopeless regime founded institution could be reformed.
I’ll never get tired of repeating this: In a dictatorship, independent journalism by default becomes a form of activism, and the spread of information is essentially an act of agitation.
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