While the Tamarod group say they will mandate the army and police to crackdown on ‘violence and terrorism’; other pro-revolutionary groups decry El-Sisi’s call to take to the streets.
Tamarod calls for break with the United States, exit of US diplomat
At a press conference for revolutionary forces Thursday, Tamarod, a grassroots campaign that gathered 22 million signatures demanding that Mohamed Morsi resign, said that it supports the military in its “war against terrorism.”
The campaign also called for protests aimed at expelling US Ambassador Anne Patterson from Egypt, to signal rejection of the policies of the United States towards Egypt after 30 June and the ouster of Morsi.
El-Sisi’s call for Friday mass demonstrations has been turned down by some revolutionary anti-Morsi groups, such as the April 6 Youth Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists.
In a statement Wednesday, the April 6 Youth Movement said: “Our armed forces do not need popular delegation to perform its patriotic duties of preserving security and resisting violence with the rule of law [and] without resorting to any arbitrary measures.”
The movement added that it “reaffirms that any measures that would lead to furthering current tensions will only throw us off the national reconciliation track and constitute a danger to our national security.”
Similarly, Egypt’s Revolutionary Socialists denounced El-Sisi’s speech, saying they will not take to the streets Friday to give the army a “blank cheque to commit massacres.”
“Whatever crimes the Brotherhood has committed against the people and against the Copts in defence of its power in the name of religion, we do not give army chief El-Sisi our authority,” the group said.
El-Sisi’s call follows a series of violent clashes nationwide after the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi 3 July and the appointment of the head of the High Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, as interim president.