Arab Spring, Round 2

[Savonarola]

The case against Morsi was open and shut.  The only thing missing was something to charge him with:

Egypt's Morsi to stand trial over prison break, spreading chaos
December 21, 2013 8:47AM ET

The new charges against Morsi and 129 others widen the legal crackdown on the ousted Islamist president and his group, the Muslim Brotherhood, leveling sweeping accusations, most of which carry the death penalty.

Egypt's new, military-backed authorities have sought to portray the Brotherhood as largely responsible for violence and militant attacks that engulfed the country following the 2011 ouster of Morsi's predecessor, longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The violence has surged in the aftermath of a popularly-backed military coup that deposed Morsi in July.

The latest case against Morsi, Egypt's first freely-elected president, is rooted in events during the 2011 uprising.

Days after major protests erupted against Mubarak, the government arrested dozens of Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi. Then, amid the turmoil and collapsing security, more than 20,000 inmates escaped in a series of jailbreaks, including Morsi and other Brotherhood members. Authorities said the jailbreaks were part of an organized effort to destabilize the country.

Investigative Judge Hassan Samir on Saturday said other Brotherhood suspects in the case include the group's leader Mohammed Badie, his deputy Mahmoud Ezzat, who is still at large, former Parliament Speaker Saad el-Katatni and others.

Also charged are members of the armed political groups Hamas, of Palestine, and Lebanon's Hezbollah group. Members from those two groups were among those who broke out of Egyptian jails. A prominent pro-Brotherhood cleric Youssef el-Qaradawi, an Egyptian based in Qatar, is also on the list, said a prosecution official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

A prosecution statement from Samir's office didn't name all the 129 defendants. It said an investigation into the case since April has shown that the Brotherhood plotted with foreign groups to "destroy the Egyptian state and its institutions," recruiting some 800 militants in the Gaza Strip to attack police stations and at least three prisons in Egypt, breaking out thousands of prisoners and killing policemen and other inmates.

No date has been set for the trial.

Already, Morsi and several leading Muslim Brotherhood members face charges in a separate case of inciting the murder of his opponents while he was in office — a trial that has already started and is due to resume next month.

Morsi was also charged earlier this week with conspiring with foreign groups to destabilize Egypt in a case dubbed "the biggest case of conspiracy" in the nation's history. A date for that second trial also has not been announced, though officials have suggested it would likely come after the Jan. 14-15 referendum to avoid an earlier start that could fuel turmoil.

The 83-year-old Brotherhood had been banned under Mubarak and earlier Egyptian regimes, but was mostly tolerated. The new crackdown is a dramatic turn in fortunes, particularly after the group rose to prominence as Egypt's best-organized political movement to win the first free parliament elections and successfully bid for the country's highest office.

Since the coup, prompted by massive protests calling for Morsi's removal, Egypt has been in a state of continual unrest. Morsi supporters have been holding near daily protests demanding his reinstatement, met by a fierce security crackdown that has killed hundreds of people and arrested thousands of Brotherhood members. Meanwhile, a wave of retaliatory attacks by suspected Islamic militants have targeted Christians and security forces, and the Sinai Peninsula has been the center of a mounting armed insurgency.

With thousands of Brotherhood members under arrest and scores facing charges like Morsi, the Islamist group and rights organizations have called the trials politically motivated.

GUILTY!

[DGuller]

All's well that ends well.

[Admiral Yi]

Morsi was also charged earlier this week with conspiring with foreign groups to destabilize Egypt in a case dubbed "the biggest case of conspiracy" in the nation's history.

That's like winning the World Cup of conspiracies.

[Viking]

Morsi was also charged earlier this week with conspiring with foreign groups to destabilize Egypt in a case dubbed "the biggest case of conspiracy" in the nation's history.

That's like winning the World Cup of conspiracies.

Then again, this is Egypt the place where the conspiracy was invented. The Young Officers, The Harem Conspiracy, Muhammed Ali and of course the Conspiracy to Convince the Egyptians that Egypt won the Yom Kippur War.

[Admiral Yi]

That was kind of my point Puff. 

[Viking]

That was kind of my point Puff. 

1 - remember, very often my sarcasm detector malfunctions
2 - running a conspiracy which relies on HAMAS for muscle suggests a level of incompetence that only Dunning-Kruger can explain.
3 - The secularists, the Army, the Copts, the Business Community and the supporters of certain soccer clubs did run a conspiracy and that conspiracy dealt with Morsi in a reasonably quick, efficient and relatively bloodless manner.

I just think that calling this "the biggest case of conspiracy" de-legitimizes the purge since any reasonably historically literate egyptian (the few that are out there) will understand how incompetent morsi's conspiracy was. Teh conspriacy that overthrew morsi was bigger and more efficient by a large margine. I think the proper charge that should be made was incompetence, not the conspiracy morsi was incompetent at.

[Savonarola]

Egypt court jails activists over protests
Three leading activists sentenced to three years in prison over illegal protests, the latest move in widening crackdown.

A Cairo court has sentenced three leading activists to three years in prison for organising an illegal protest, the latest move in a widening crackdown on critics of the interim government.

Two of the three activists, Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, are leading members of the April 6 movement. The third is Ahmed Douma, a longtime activist.

They have been targets for prosecution before: Douma was fined for insulting deposed President Mohamed Morsi earlier this year, and Maher was briefly detained in May on incitement charges.

The court on Sunday also handed down fines of 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($7,200). A lawyer for the defendants said they would appeal the verdict.

This was the first criminal trial under a restrictive law issued last month that requires protesters to seek approval from the interior ministry. The three-year jail sentence is the maximum allowed under the law.

"I'm surprised. I did not expect they would come back with a verdict worse than ever before, that they would take revenge on the protesters from the revolution," said Amal Sharaf, a co-founder of April 6.

"They [the government] will pay a lot for this," she added.

The defendants were charged with organising a protest last month outside Abdeen Court in downtown Cairo. Maher was at the court to turn himself in on charges connected with another illegal protest, earlier in November, outside the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament.

Maher has denied any role in the earlier demonstration, which was organised by a lobbying group to protest an article in the draft constitution allowing military trials for civilians.

The defendants were also charged with obstructing traffic, "thuggery," and damaging private property. Security forces and protesters briefly scuffled with batons and plastic furniture from a nearby cafe. Officers said the defendants attacked them first. April 6 has denied this, and called the charges "political."

In a particularly surreal twist, prosecutors presented as evidence the fact that Douma asked protesters to stop the rally once it turned violent - proof, they said, that he helped organise the demonstration.

He was arrested at his home several days after Maher turned himself in. Adel remained free until early Thursday morning, when he was detained during a raid on a local human rights organisation.

Thousands of people have been arrested since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi in July, most of them supporters of the president and his Muslim Brotherhood. But the crackdown has recently widened to include liberal and secular activists.

Groups like April 6 have been portrayed in state and private media as a "fifth column," working to undermine the country's stability. So while Sunday's verdict was quickly condemned by activists, it is unlikely to meet much criticism from the general population.

Sharaf said April 6 would respond to the conviction for organising an illegal protest with, unsurprisingly, another protest.

In the United States "Thuggery" would get you a record contract.  In India it would get you the ability to take a man's still beating heart out of his chest with your bare hands.  Egypt is really wasting their potential.

[Savonarola]

Bus bombings are no longer just for Israeli school children:

Egyptian govt threatens Brotherhood leaders with death sentences
December 26, 2013 8:55AM ET Updated 9:00PM ET

The decree comes after five are wounded in a bus bombing, amid escalating rhetoric against the Muslim Brotherhood

Five people were injured on Thursday when a bomb exploded near a bus at a busy intersection in Cairo, one day after the interim government classified the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organization" and two days after a blast at a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura killed 14 people.

The bomb detonated in the Nasr City neighborhood, in front of Al-Azhar University. Ambulance workers said one of the injured passengers was in critical condition.

Police said the bomb was a small homemade device planted in the street. It blew out the windows of the bus, but caused little damage to the surrounding area. And the driver was able to move the bus after police cordoned off the area.

"We defused two other bombs in the area, which were meant to detonate by remote," said an officer at the scene, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. Government spokesman Abdel-Fatah Osman told state TV said that the bomb was planted near a school complex "to terrorize people and cause chaos."

Cairo has seen several homemade bomb attacks in recent months, though they have typically targeted security forces. Thursday's blast appeared to be the first targeting civilians. Last month Mohamed Mabrouk, a lieutenant colonel in the state security service, was killed near his home in Nasr City. Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim survived an assassination attempt in the neighborhood in September.

Thursday's blast came hours after the interim government labeled the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organization" and froze the assets of charities linked to the group.

Egyptian authorities have arrested 23 Muslim Brotherhood supporters Thursday on accusations of belonging to a terrorist organization.

The people arrested were accused of passing out leaflets in support of the Brotherhood, promoting the group's ideology, and inciting violence against the Egyptian security services, according to Egypt's state media agency, MENA.

Interior Ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif told state TV that anyone taking part in Brotherhood protests will be jailed for five years. Jail terms for those accused under the terror law stretch up to life imprisonment.

"The sentence could be death for those who lead this organization," he said.

Terrorism charges will also apply to anyone who finances or promotes the group "verbally and in writing." Publication of the Brotherhood's newspaper, Freedom and Justice, was halted in response to the decision.

"Egypt will stand firmly in confronting terrorism and the people will never be afraid as long as the army is present," said Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, during an army graduation ceremony on Thursday in Cairo.

On Wednesday, the Sinai-based group Ansar Beit al-Makdis claimed responsibility for the Mansoura bombing in a statement posted online. Numerous attacks have killed dozens of soldiers and police officers in the Sinai over the past few months.

Despite Ansar Beit al-Makdis' claim, the government nonetheless pinned the blame on the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has denied any involvement, saying the government is trying to scapegoat it, and called for increased protests. Authorities are facing mounting criticism that they have not done enough to restore security following months of political turmoil.

"The police and the army, they are the biggest powers in the country, and they have one responsibility, to protect the people," said Tarek Ezzedine, who witnessed the explosion. "They need to do their job."

Al-Azhar University has for months been the site of near-daily protests by student supporters of President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted in a military coup in July. The university, and the bombing site, are down the road from Raba'a al-Adawiya square, one of two locations where hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters were killed by police in August.

Hany Abdellatif, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said the bombing was meant to instill fear ahead of a January referendum on Egypt's new constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood opposes the referendum and has carried out small protests daily calling for the reinstatement of Morsi.

I feel better already.   

[Sheilbh]

The military government have banned the Muslim Brotherhood (which could be even more dangerous than normal given their charity work and the state of the Egyptian economy) as terrorists.

They've established a helpline for people to report suspected Brotherhood members as well as other helplines to report 'suspicious packages' or 'suspicious gatherings of people'.

Being a member carries a 5 year sentence. Leading a pro-MB demonstration carries the death sentence 'even if a woman' according to the Interior Ministry.

They've also raided human rights charities offices and arrested people campaigning against the constitution for sedition.

Sadly all predictable from a military coup, but very difficult to stop. It's 1954 again

Incidentally there's no links between the Brotherhood and any terrorism.

[alfred russel]

Incidentally there's no links between the Brotherhood and any terrorism.

Give it time. There will be.

[Razgovory]

Incidentally there's no links between the Brotherhood and any terrorism.

Give it time. There will be.

At this time, they sort of force their hands.   What sort of peaceful recourse is left?  If the army seized power to overthrow an election, butchered 1,000 protesters, outlawed a political party with penalties ranging from 5 years to death I'd be kind of pissed as well.  But few people care, since the victims are Muslim.

[Admiral Yi]

You could as well be describing Gandhi's India.

[Razgovory]

You could as well be describing Gandhi's India.

I didn't know that Ghandi executed leaders of protests.

[Sheilbh]

At this time, they sort of force their hands.   What sort of peaceful recourse is left?  If the army seized power to overthrow an election, butchered 1,000 protesters, outlawed a political party with penalties ranging from 5 years to death I'd be kind of pissed as well.  But few people care, since the victims are Muslim.

They're not just a political party though. They've survived before - and this is why they've got a closed, secretive membership system - but they've got 300 000 members, most of whom are mainly interested in the charitable work. I imagine, as they've done before, they'll go underground and survive.

Some will see it as another reason they should never have got involved in politics, but others will certainly radicalise. I'd be surprised if the Brotherhood as a whole did.

I didn't know that Ghandi executed leaders of protests.

Even she never went that far.

[Admiral Yi]

he he