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| Egyptian soldiers secure the area around Nasser City, where Muslim Brotherhood supporters have gathered to support ousted president Mohammed Morsi, in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, July 4, 2013. The chief justice of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court was sworn in Thursday as the nation's interim president, taking over hours after the military ousted the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Adly Mansour took the oath of office at the Nile-side Constitutional Court in a ceremony broadcast live on state television. According to military decree, Mansour will serve as Egypt's interim leader until a new president is elected. A date for that vote has yet to be set. |
CAIRO (AP) --
Egypt's military moved swiftly Thursday against senior figures of the
Muslim Brotherhood, targeting the backbone of support for ousted
President Mohammed Morsi. In the most dramatic step, authorities
arrested the group's revered leader from a seaside villa and flew him by
helicopter to detention in the capital.
With a
top judge newly sworn in as interim president to replace Morsi, the
crackdown poses an immediate test to the new army-backed leadership's
promises to guide Egypt to democracy: The question of how to include the
83-year-old fundamentalist group.
That
question has long been at the heart of democracy efforts in Egypt. Hosni
Mubarak and previous authoritarian regimes banned the group, raising
cries even from pro-reform Brotherhood critics that it must be allowed
to participate if Egypt was to be free. After Mubarak's fall, the newly
legalized group vaulted to power in elections, with its veteran member
Morsi becoming the country's first freely elected president.
Now
the group is reeling under a huge backlash from a public that says the
Brotherhood and its Islamist allies abused their electoral mandate. The
military forced Morsi out Wednesday after millions of Egyptians
nationwide turned out in four days of protests demanding he be removed.
Adly
Mansour, the head of the Supreme Constititonal Court, with which Morsi
had repeated confrontations, was sworn in as interim president.
In
his inaugural speech, broadcast nationwide, he said the anti-Morsi
protests that began June 30 had "corrected the path of the glorious
revolution of Jan. 25," referring to the 2011 uprising that toppled
Mubarak.
To cheers from his audience, he also
praised the army, police, media and judiciary for standing against the
Brotherhood. Islamists saw those institutions as full of Mubarak
loyalists trying to thwart their rule.
Furious
over what it calls a military coup against democracy, the Brotherhood
said it would not work with the new leadership. It and harder-line
Islamist allies called for a wave of protests Friday, dubbing it the
"Friday of Rage," vowing to escalate if the military does not back down.
There
are widespread fears of Islamist violence in retaliation for Morsi's
ouster, and already some former militant extremists have vowed to fight.
Suspected
militants opened fire at four sites in northern Sinai, targeting two
military checkpoints, a police station and el-Arish airport, where
military aircraft are stationed, security officials said. The military
and security responded to the attacks, and one soldier was killed and
three were injured, according to security officials who spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the
media.
Multiple officials of the Brotherhood
firmly urged their followers to keep their protests peaceful. Thousands
of Morsi supporters remained massed in front of a Cairo mosque where
they have camped for days, with line of military armored vehicles across
the road keeping watch.
"We declare our
complete rejection of the military coup staged against the elected
president and the will of the nation," the Brotherhood said in a
statement, read by senior cleric Abdel-Rahman el-Barr to the crowd
outside the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo.
"We
refuse to participate in any activities with the usurping authorities,"
the statement said, urging Morsi supporters to remain peaceful. The
Rabia al-Adawiya protesters planned to march Friday to the Ministry of
Defense.
The Brotherhood denounced the
crackdown, including the shutdown Wednesday night of its television
channel, Misr25, its newspaper and three pro-Morsi Islamist TV stations.
The military, it said, is returning Egypt to the practices of "the
dark, repressive, dictatorial and corrupt ages."
A
military statement late Thursday appeared to signal a wider wave of
arrests was not in the offing. A spokesman, Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali,
said in a Facebook posting that that the army and security forces will
not take "any exceptional or arbitrary measures" against any political
group.
The military has a "strong will to
ensure national reconciliation, constructive justice and tolerance," he
wrote. He spoke against "gloating" and vengeance, saying only peaceful
protests will be tolerated and urging Egyptians not to attack
Brotherhood offices to avert an "endless cycle of revenge."
The
army's removal of Morsi sparked massive celebrations Wednesday night
among the crowds of protesters around the country, with fireworks,
dancing and blaring car horns lasting close to dawn.
The
constitution, which Islamists drafted and Morsi praised as the greatest
in the world, has been suspended. Also, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, the
Mubarak-era top prosecutor whom Morsi removed to much controversy, was
reinstated to his post and immediately announced investigations against
Brotherhood officials.
Many of the
Brotherhood's opponents want them prosecuted for what they say were
crimes committed during Morsi's rule, just as Mubarak was prosecuted for
protester deaths during the 2011 uprising. In the past year, dozens
were killed in clashes with Brotherhood supporters and with security
forces.
But the swift moves raise perceptions of a revenge campaign against the Brotherhood.
The
National Salvation Front, the top opposition political group during
Morsi's presidency and a key member of the coalition that worked with
the military in his removal, criticized the moves, saying, "We totally
reject excluding any party, particularly political Islamic groups."
The
Front has proposed one of its top leaders, Mohammed ElBaradei, to
become prime minister of the interim Cabinet, a post that will hold
strong powers since Mansour's presidency post is considered symbolic.
ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear
watchdog agency, is considered Egypt's top reform advocate.
"Reconciliation
is the name of the game, including the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to
be inclusive," Munir Fakhry Abdel-Nour, a leading member of the group,
told The Associated Press. "The detentions are a mistake."
He
said the arrests appeared to be prompted by security officials' fears
over possible calls for violence by Brotherhood leaders. There may be
complaints against certain individuals in the Brotherhood "but they
don't justify the detention," he said, predicting they will be released
in the coming days.
Abdel-Nour said the Front
intends to ensure the military has no role in politics. He added that
the Front is hoping for the backing of ultraconservative Salafis for
ElBaradei's bid for prime minister. Some Salafi factions have sided with
the new leadership. He noted that the constitution was not outright
canceled, in a gesture to Salafis.
Morsi has
been under detention in an unknown location since Wednesday night, and
at least a dozen of his top aides and advisers have been under what is
described as "house arrest," though their locations are also unknown.
Besides
the Brotherhood's top leader, General Guide Mohammed Badie, security
officials have also arrested his predecessor, Mahdi Akef, and one of his
two deputies, Rashad Bayoumi, as well as Saad el-Katatni, head of the
Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and ultraconservative Salafi
figure Hazem Abu Ismail, who has a considerable street following.
Authorities
have also issued a wanted list for more than 200 Brotherhood members
and leaders of other Islamist groups. Among them is Khairat el-Shater,
another deputy of the general guide who is widely considered the most
powerful figure in the Brotherhood.
The arrest
of Badie was a dramatic step, since even Mubarak and his predecessors
had been reluctant to move against the group's top leader. The ranks of
Brotherhood members across the country swear a strict oath of
unquestioning allegiance to the general guide, vowing to "hear and
obey." It has been decades since any Brotherhood general guide was put
in a prison.
Badie and el-Shater were widely
believed by the opposition to be the real power in Egypt during Morsi's
tenure. Badie was arrested late Wednesday from a villa where he had been
staying in the Mediterranean coastal city of Marsa Matrouh and flown by
helicopter to Cairo, security officials said, speaking on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to talk the press.
Mahmoud,
the top prosecutor, said he was opening investigations into the
killings of protesters during Morsi's rule. He ordered el-Katatni and
Bayoumi questioned on allegations of instigating violence and killings,
and put travel bans on 36 others, a sign they too could face
prosecution. He also took steps toward releasing a prominent activist
detained for insulting Morsi.
Mansour, the
67-year-old interim president, is a Mubarak appointee like nearly every
judge. He had been the deputy head of the court for more than 20 years.
He was elevated to the chief justice position only three days ago, when his predecessor reached mandatory retirement age.
Mansour
was among the judges who ruled against a political isolation law in
2012 that would have barred many Mubarak-era officials from politics. As
a result, Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, was able to run
against Morsi.
In his speech, Mansour said the
massive street demonstrations "brought together everyone without
discrimination or division," and were an "expression of the nation's
conscience and an embodiment of its hopes and ambitions."
But
he made no sign of outreach to the Brotherhood in his address. He
suggested Morsi's election had been tainted, saying, "I look forward to
parliamentary and presidential elections held with the genuine and
authentic will of the people."
The revolution, he said, must continue so "we stop producing tyrants."
