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| Supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi protest as army soldiers guard at the Republican Guard building in Nasr City, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, July 10, 2013. |
CAIRO (AP) --
Egypt's military-backed government tightened a crackdown on the Muslim
Brotherhood on Wednesday, ordering the arrest of its revered leader in a
bid to choke off the group's campaign to reinstate President Mohammed
Morsi one week after an army-led coup.
The
Brotherhood denounced the warrants for the arrest of Mohammed Badie and
nine other leading Islamists for inciting violence Monday that left
dozens dead, saying "dictatorship is back" and vowing it will never work
with the interim rulers.
Leaders of the
Brotherhood are believed to be taking refuge somewhere near a continuing
sit-in by its supporters at the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in eastern
Cairo, but it is not clear if Badie also is there.
The
Brotherhood is outraged by the overthrow of Morsi, one of its own, and
demands nothing less than his release from detention and his
reinstatement as president.
Security agencies
have already jailed five leaders of the Brotherhood, including Badie's
powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shaiter, and shut down its media outlets.
The
prosecutor general's office said Badie, another deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat,
senior member Mohammed El-Beltagy and popular preacher Safwat Hegazy are
suspected of instigating the clashes with security forces outside a
Republican Guard building near the mosque that killed 54 people - most
of them Morsi supporters - in the worst bloodshed since he was ousted.
The
Islamists have accused the troops of gunning down protesters, while the
military blamed armed backers of Morsi for attempting to storm a
military building.
The warrants highlight the
armed forces' zero-tolerance policy toward the Brotherhood, which was
banned under authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.
"This
just signals that dictatorship is back," said Brotherhood spokesman
Ahmed Aref. "We are returning to what is worse than Mubarak's regime,
which wouldn't dare to issue an arrest warrant of the general leader of
the Muslim Brotherhood."
The Brotherhood's
refusal to work with the new interim leaders underscored the
difficulties they face in trying to stabilize Egypt and bridge the deep
fissures that have opened in the country during Morsi's year in office.
Morsi
has not been seen since the July 3 coup, but Foreign Ministry spokesman
Badr Abdel-Atti gave the first official word on him in days, saying he
is in a safe place and is being treated in a "very dignified manner." No
charges have been leveled against him, Abdel-Atti said.
"For
his own safety and for the safety of the country, it is better to keep
him. ... Otherwise, consequences will be dire," he added.
Badie
had appeared at the Rabaa al-Adawiya rally Friday, a day after an
earlier arrest warrant against him was issued, also accusing him of
inciting violence. On Wednesday night, he delivered a message to the
crowd through a senior Brotherhood leader, an indication that he didn't
want to make an appearance and endanger his security.
He spoke of Monday's violence, calling the troops that carried it out "traitors."
"They
didn't just betray their people ... their leader (Morsi), but they also
betrayed God," said Abdel-Rahman el-Bar, a Brotherhood leader, reading
from Badie's message.
He urged supporters to
stay camped out in the sit-in and mosques, using the holy month of
Ramadan to pray for Morsi's deliverance. Badie also sought to dismiss
accusations that his group used violence.
"The
Muslim Brotherhood has struggled for Egypt's freedom from occupation
and oppression. It was and will remain faithful to its promises and
peaceful in its positions," the message said.
On
Friday, Badie had delivered a fiery speech at the rally in person,
telling those in the crowd that they will bring Morsi back to the palace
on their shoulders.
"We are his soldiers. We defend him with our lives," Badie said before disappearing.
Following
the speech, thousands of Islamists marched and clashed with Morsi
opponents in the heart of Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, leaving more
than 30 dead and 200 injured.
In one of the
most dramatic instances of violence that day, two Morsi opponents were
killed when they were pushed off a roof by supporters of the ousted
president in the second-largest city of Alexandria. Hamada Badr was
stabbed and thrown off the roof, his father said. According to amateur
video accessed by The Associated Press, a second man was hurled to his
death and Morsi supporters were seen beating his lifeless body. The
video appeared consistent with AP's reporting from the area.
Since
then, both sides appeared to be running a campaign of fear. The
military and supportive media have depicted the Brotherhood and its
backers as promoting violence and endangering national security. The
Brotherhood and pro-Morsi protesters have portrayed Defense Minister
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as head of a "militia" that is seeking to
annihilate Islamists, waging a fight akin to the civil war in Syria.
News
of the arrest warrants did not surprise the protesters, who saw the
move as an attempt to pressure the group's leadership to end the
demonstration.
"We expected it," said Ayman
el-Ashmawi. "Even if they arrest the biggest number of Muslim
Brotherhood members, we want to say that the Muslim Brotherhood will
leave this square only over our dead bodies - or the return of Dr.
Mohammed Morsi."
Fathi Abdel-Wahab, a bearded protester in his 30s, said he and the others at the rally had legitimacy on their side.
"We
will sacrifice ourselves and we will continue because we have a clear
cause. We will defend it peacefully. ... We will never accept the
military's coup," he said as he rested inside a tent near a group of
people reciting verses from the Quran.
After a
week of violence and mass demonstrations, Egyptians were hoping that
Wednesday's start of Ramadan would calm the streets. The
sunrise-to-sunset fast cuts down on daytime activity, although there
were fears of unrest at night.
Late Wednesday,
gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire on the convoy of a top military
commander, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, in the Sinai town of Rafah, near the border
with Gaza, drawing fire from the accompanying troops, security
officials said. Wasfi escaped unharmed, but a 5-year-old girl was killed
in the clashes, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to speak to the media. One gunman was
arrested.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Morsi
supporters protested late Wednesday outside the presidential palace,
where his opponents have continued to hold their ground, even after his
ouster. Under heavy military guard, the pro-Morsi demonstrators chanted
against el-Sissi, the defense minister, shouting, "What el-Sissi? We
stepped over bigger shots." Some protesters formed a human chain to draw
a line between them and the troops. After less than hour, they left the
area peacefully.
The military-backed interim
president, Adly Mansour, issued a fast-track timetable Monday for the
transition. His declaration set out a seven-month timetable for
elections but also a truncated, temporary constitution laying out the
division of powers.
The accelerated process
was meant, in part, to reassure the U.S. and other Western allies that
Egypt is on a path toward democratic leadership. But it has faced
opposition from the very groups that led the four days of mass protests
that prompted the military to remove Morsi.
The
top liberal political group, the National Salvation Front, expressed
reservations over the plan, saying it was not consulted. The Front said
the declaration "lacks significant clauses while others need change or
removal," but did not elaborate.
The secular,
revolutionary youth movement Tamarod that organized the massive
anti-Morsi demonstrations also criticized the plan, in part because it
gives too much power to Mansour, including the authority to issue laws. A
post-Morsi plan put forward by Tamarod called for a largely ceremonial
interim president with most power in the hands of the prime minister.
At
the heart of liberals' objections is that they wanted to remove broadly
worded articles that Morsi's allies introduced into the constitution,
giving Islamic laws a greater weight. They objected that at least one of
those clauses remained in Mansour's declaration. Other objections
centered on powers of the interim president.
The only Islamist party that backed military's ouster of Morsi has been vetoing any rewriting of the constitution.
New
Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who was appointed Tuesday by Mansour,
is holding consultations on a Cabinet. In what is seen as an attempt at
reconciliation, el-Beblawi has said he will offer the Brotherhood, which
helped propel Morsi to the presidency, posts in his transitional
government.
A Brotherhood spokesman who spoke
on condition of anonymity because he feared for his security said the
group will not take part in an interim Cabinet, and that talk of
national reconciliation under the current circumstances is "irrelevant."
The
nascent government also will soon face demands that it tackle economic
woes that mounted under Morsi, including fuel shortages, electricity
cutoffs and inflation.
Kuwait joined other
Gulf nations in offering financial aid to the new leadership, saying it
would give a package worth $4 billion. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates - both opponents of Morsi's Brotherhood - promised
the cash-strapped Egyptian government $8 billion in grants, loans and
badly needed gas and oil.
The donations
effectively step in for Morsi's Gulf patron, Qatar, a close ally of the
Brotherhood that gave his government several billion in aid during his
year in office.
