Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Stands Behind Morsi

A Brotherhood spokesman hits out at the international community for its response to the ousting of president Mohamed Morsi.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood's official spokesman has told Sky News the organisation will continue to campaign against Egypt's military coup and for the re-instatement of Mohamed Morsi as president.

Gehad El-Haddad has insisted his organisation supports only non-violent protest, and criticised the international community for its response to the coup.

"There's a hypocritical nature of international community that they need to get rid of in the 21st century. This is not the world 100 years ago or 50 years ago," he said.

"Unless the leaders man up to their promises ... and the democracy that their people stand for, then they're not going to have the clout in the next election and they're probably going to fall afterwards.

"When we went out of Egypt after the January 25th revolution to visit world leaders and diplomats ... they said: 'We are very sorry. We got it wrong for 30 years. We supported the dictatorship, the Mubarak regime in Egypt. We will make it up to you and we won't do it again'.

"They broke both promises. In one year only they managed to overturn it and are refusing to recognise it as a military coup."

Gehad El-Haddad says the Muslim Brotherhood will continue its campaign

Opponents of Mr Morsi have again flocked to Tahrir Square as the ousted Egyptian president's supporters massed for rival demonstrations to keep up the pressure on the army for toppling him.

The rallies come as the coalition that backed Mr Morsi's ouster wavered over the choice of Nobel Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei as interim prime minister to lead the country out of crisis.

Demonstrations by tens of thousands of members of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood have degenerated into violence in recent days, killing at least 36 people and injured 1,400 across the country.

The Tamarod movement, which engineered mass protests that culminated in the military's overthrow of Mr Morsi on Wednesday, led calls for people to gather at Tahrir and Ittihadiya presidential palace to "complete the revolution".

The opposition has wavered over appointing Mohamed ElBaradei as interim PM

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) called on Mr Morsi supporters to converge on Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, Cairo University and the Republican Guard headquarters.

The demonstrations, the FJP said, were to support the "legitimacy" of Mr Morsi's election in June last year and to "reject the military coup" that ousted him.

Morsi's single year of turbulent rule was marked by accusations he failed the 2011 revolution that ousted autocratic president Hosni Mubarak by concentrating power in Islamist hands and letting the economy collapse.

In an interview published on Sunday, Mr ElBaradei called for "inclusion of the Brotherhood in the democratisation process".

"No one should be taken to court without a convincing reason. Former president Morsi must be treated with dignity," the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize told German news weekly Der Spiegel.

The official MENA news agency said on Saturday that caretaker president Adly Mansour had appointed Mr ElBaradei, only for his office to later deny any final decision had been taken.