CAIRO: Tens of thousands of Islamist supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi gathered in Cairo after Friday prayers to show support for the elected head of state before protests that his opponents hope can force him from office.
Crowds converged on a mosque in the suburb of Nasr City, many waving the national flag, some carrying pictures of the bearded president, in what is intended to demonstrate the Islamists’ strength of numbers ahead of the opposition rallies set for June 30, the first anniversary of Mursi’s inauguration.
“Yes to respecting the will of the people!” read some banners.
“There are people seeking a coup against the lawful order,” said demonstrator Gaber Nader, 22, his head protected from the burning sun by a green banner from Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the movement whose organisational strength has won it successive elections since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
“Dr Mursi won in free and fair elections like in any state in the world,” Nader said, shrugging off concerns among the less well organised opposition that the Brotherhood is aiming for a monopoly of power and to install Islamic rule and social order.
“Secular parties are eating the democracy God gave them.”
Mursi’s opponents say they have gathered about 15 million signatures — more than the 13 million votes that elected Mursi a year ago — on a petition calling on him to step down; they say new elections could end the paralysing polarisation of society, though no obvious leader has emerged to build consensus.
Mursi’s opponents have attracted support from many Egyptians who are less politically engaged but exasperated by economic stagnation under the Islamists. Supporters of the Brotherhood feel their electoral success is under siege from unelected institutions and vested interests rooted in the Mubarak era, when their party was banned. Reflecting this, some in Friday’s crowd - mostly men, with a few heavily veiled women - chanted for “A purge of the judiciary!” and “A purge of the media!”
There was no trouble evident in Cairo, where people packed streets for hundreds of metres around the rallying point at the mosque; there were scuffles in Alexandria when Mursi supporters and opponents faced off briefly in Egypt’s second city.
In Cairo, Brotherhood members armed with green staves said they were ready to protect demonstrators from “thugs”.
“The other side will take this as an excuse for anarchy,” said one man on guard, 26-year-old preacher Amr Hamam, pointing to dozens of injuries in scuffles across Egypt in the past week.
Reuters
