Thousands demand Morsi reinstatement

Thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi took to the streets of Egyptian cities yesterday to demand the reinstatement of the Islamist leader.

However, Egypt’s armed forces, which shunted the country’s first freely elected president from office less than three weeks ago, looked in no mood to make concessions, putting on a show of force in the hazy skies above Cairo.

Eight fighter jets screamed over the sun-baked city in the morning and afternoon, while two formations of helicopters, some trailing the Egyptian flag, hummed over the roof tops.

Waving their own Egyptian flags, along with portraits of the bearded Morsi, members of the Muslim Brotherhood marched in Cairo, Alexandria and several other cities along the Nile Delta, denouncing what they termed a military coup.

“We are coming out today to restore legitimacy,” said Tarek Yassin, 40, who had travelled to Cairo from the southern city of Sohag, underscoring the Brotherhood’s deep roots in the provinces.

“We consider what happened secular thuggery. It would never happen in any democratic country,” he said.

Soldiers prevented protesters from nearing army installations, and there were reports of only minor scuffles, with troops firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators close to the presidential palace in Cairo, the state news agency said.

At least 99 people have died in violence since Morsi’s removal on Jul 3, more than half of them when troops fired on Islamist protesters outside a Cairo barracks on Jul 8.

Seven people died earlier this week in clashes between opposing camps.

The army has dismissed any talk of a coup, saying it had to intervene after vast protests on Jun 30 against Morsi, denounced by his many critics as incompetent and partisan after just a year in office.

It has called for a new constitution and a swift new vote, installing an interim cabinet that includes no members of the Brotherhood or other Islamist parties that triumphed in elections following the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Morsi is being held in an undisclosed location by the army, and numerous senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders have also been detained in recent days, leading to fears of a broad crackdown.

The top United Nations human rights official, Navi Pillay, has asked the new Egyptian government to explain both the legal basis for the detentions and to say whether trials were planned.

— Reuters