Defying Sisi, Brotherhood leaders push for protests

Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie called on his followers to take to the streets and defend “the revolution” from the military in his weekly message on Thursday, reported the state-run daily Al-Ahram.

The Armed Forces forcibly removed former president and Brotherhood-affiliate Mohamed Morsi from office on July 3 after four days of nationwide mass protests demanding his resignation. Since then, his supporters have camped out in large-scale sit-ins in both east and west Cairo, and organized marches and road blocking actions to pressure for his reinstatement. Most of these acts of protest resulted in deadly violence, with clashes leaving high numbers of Brotherhood members, area residents and police forces dead or injured over the past three weeks.

Badie said Morsi's ouster was an action akin to dismantling the kaaba.

The Brotherhood leader asked his “free, honorable and perseverant” followers to raise the slogans of the January 25 revolution, including, “Freedom, dignity, bread and social justice,” and stand against “the bloody military coup, whose diseases have infected everyone and whose crimes are increasing hour after hour. People of the whole world have spoken against these military coups.”

The prosecutor general recently an arrest warrant against Badie for inciting violence. 

The statement comes in response to Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s speech to the nation on Wednesday night, in which he called on the people of Egypt to take to the streets on Friday to show their support for the military in the “fight against terrorism.”

Sisi’s speech stirred other calls for counter-protests from the Muslim Brotherhood bloc. Members of the group have expressed concerns that Sisi's statement could be interpreted as a license for violence to be enacted against Islamist protesters.

Freedom and Justice Party leader Essam al-Erian wrote on Facebook on Thursday that supporters of the military need “to reconcile with themselves before the fascist military coup fails and legitimacy returns, and President Mohamed Morsi leads Egypt to security.”