This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/world/middleeast/egypt.html

The article has changed 14 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 10 Version 11
Morsi Aides Arrested in Widening Sweep Morsi Aides Arrested in Widening Sweep
(about 4 hours later)
CAIRO — Egyptian prosecutors escalated what appeared to be a widespread roundup of top Muslim Brotherhood members on Thursday, acting hours after the military deposed Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist who became the country’s first democratically elected president just a year ago. CAIRO — Remnants of Egypt’s old government reasserted themselves on Thursday within hours of the military ouster of the country’s first freely elected president, in a crackdown that left scores of his Muslim Brotherhood backers under arrest, their television stations closed, and former officials restored to powerful posts.
The roundup, which placed some Brotherhood members in the same prison holding Hosni Mubarak, the autocratic leader toppled in the 2011 revolution, came as a senior jurist was sworn in as the acting head of state and an alliance of Islamists called on supporters to stage peaceful demonstrations nationwide on Friday to protest Mr. Morsi’s ouster. The actions provided the first indications of what Egypt’s new political order could look like after Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president in power for only a year, was deposed by Egypt’s military commanders on Wednesday evening.
In a ceremony broadcast live on state television, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, took the oath and praised the protesters whose mass demonstrations spurred the Egyptian military to depose Mr. Morsi on Wednesday, suspend the Constitution and install an interim government. Mr. Mansour said the actions in Egypt had “corrected the path of its glorious revolution.” The commanders, who installed an interim civilian leader, said they had acted to bring the country back together after millions of Egyptians demonstrated against Mr. Morsi, claiming he had arrogated power, polarized society and pushed the country into a steep economic crisis.
Both Mr. Mansour and the National Salvation Front, an alliance of liberal and leftist parties that had pushed for Mr. Morsi’s ouster, offered an olive branch to his Islamist supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that the group was part of the spectrum of Egyptian society and should participate in an inclusive political process. But Mr. Morsi’s downfall and the swift effort that followed to repress the Muslim Brotherhood deeply angered many of its constituents. They called for demonstrations nationwide on Friday, which could provide a telling test of tolerance by the interim government and its claims of wanting to represent all segments of Egypt’s population.
But the Muslim Brotherhood, which had long been banned in Egypt until the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and quickly shot to power under Mr. Morsi, appeared to rule out any reconciliation, arguing that the military intervention was a coup that overthrew Egypt’s legitimate leader. By late Thursday, it was already clear that the forced change of power, which had the trappings of a military coup wrapped in a popular revolt, had only aggravated the most seething division — that between the Muslim Brotherhood and the security apparatus built up by Hosni Mubarak, the president toppled in Egypt’s 2011 revolution.
“We reject participation in any work with the usurper authorities,” Sheik Abdel Rahman al-Barr, an executive board member of the organization, said in a statement on the group’s Web site, which also exhorted members to “show self-restraint and stay peaceful.” The divisions belied a stately ceremony in the country’s highest court, where a little-known judge was sworn in as the new acting head of state. The interim president, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adli Mansour, said he looked forward to parliamentary and presidential elections that would express the “true will of the people.” Mr. Mansour praised the military’s intervention so that Egypt could “correct the path of its glorious revolution.”
A group called the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, a coalition of Islamist parties including the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a call for “peaceful protests on Friday in all of Egypt’s provinces to denounce the military coup against legitimacy and in support of the legitimacy of President Morsi,” according to Ahram Online, the English-language Web site of Al Ahram, Egypt’s flagship newspaper. Fighter jets screamed through the Cairo skies, and fireworks burst over huge celebrations in Tahrir Square.
Earlier on Thursday, Egypt’s public prosecutor ordered the arrest of the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and his influential deputy, Khairat el-Shater, on charges of incitement to kill demonstrators. Egyptian media said Mr. Badie was taken into custody. At the same time, security forces held Mr. Morsi incommunicado in an undisclosed location, Islamist broadcast outlets were closed, and prosecutors sought the arrest of hundreds of Mr. Morsi’s Brotherhood colleagues, in a sign that they had the most to lose in Egypt’s latest political convulsion.
The two Islamist leaders were suspected of playing a role in the deaths of eight protesters, six by gunshots, while a mob was attacking and burning the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo earlier this week, Egyptian media said. “What kind of national reconciliation starts with arresting people?” said Ebrahem el-Erian after security officials came to his family home before dawn to try to arrest his father, Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood official. “This is complete exclusion.”
The arrests appeared to be part of a broadening crackdown on Mr. Morsi and his political allies that included the arrests of dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members. Ahram Online said those taken into custody included Saad el-Katatni, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, and Rashad Bayoumi, the deputy head of the Islamist movement. Many of the most significant political shifts pointed to the reassertion of the “deep state,” a term often used for the powerful branches of the Mubarak-era government that remained in place after he had been deposed.
Shortly before Mr. Mansour was sworn in, the skies over the capital, Cairo, filled with military jets in a series of flybys, news reports said. The state-run MENA news agency reported that the flights were meant to “celebrate the triumph of popular will.” Much of that state apparatus has always shown deep distrust of Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, despite their clear victories in parliamentary and presidential elections.
Tahrir Square, where tens of thousands of opponents of the government had gathered each night since Sunday to demand Mr. Morsi’s removal, erupted in fireworks and jubilation on Wednesday night at news of the ouster, but by Thursday the city was reported to be calm. Mr. Morsi never succeeded in asserting his control over the military, the security services, the judiciary or the sprawling state bureaucracy. Nor did he succeed in dismantling the support network that Mr. Mubarak and his National Democratic Party cultivated through nearly 30 years in power.
At a square near the presidential palace where Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters had gathered, men broke into tears and vowed to stay until he was reinstated or they were forcibly removed. “The dogs have done it and made a coup against us,” they chanted on Wednesday. “Dying for the sake of God is more sublime than anything,” a speaker declared. So once the military removed Mr. Morsi, many of these elements set their sights on him and his group.
Military vehicles and soldiers in riot gear had surrounded the pro-Morsi rally in the hours before the takeover, and tensions escalated through the night. Within hours, at least seven people had died and more than 300 were injured in clashes in 17 provinces between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and either civilian opponents or security forces. “What do you call it when the police, state security, old members of the National Democratic Party, the media all rally to bring down the regime?” asked Emad Shahin, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo. “Is that a revolution? If this is the revolution, so be it.”
Just before he was taken into custody, Mr. Morsi rejected the generals’ actions as a “complete military coup.” By the end of Wednesday night, Mr. Morsi, under house arrest, was blocked from all communications, one of his advisers said. In his swearing-in address, Mr. Mansour offered an olive branch to the Islamists, saying they were part of Egyptian society and deserved to participate in the political process. The National Salvation Front, an umbrella opposition group that had pushed for Mr. Morsi’s ouster, also called for an inclusive political process.
For Mr. Morsi, it was a bitter and ignominious end to a tumultuous year of bruising political battles that ultimately alienated millions of Egyptians. Having won a narrow victory, his critics say, he broke his promises of an inclusive government and repeatedly demonized his opposition as traitors. With the economy crumbling, and with shortages of electricity and fuel, anger at the government mounted. But in less than 24 hours after the military’s intervention, prosecutors issued arrest warrants for at least 200 Islamists, most of them members of the Muslim Brotherhood. All were wanted on accusations of incitement to kill demonstrators.
The generals built their case for intervention in a carefully orchestrated series of maneuvers, calling their actions an effort at a “national reconciliation” and refusing to call their takeover a coup. At a televised news conference late on Wednesday night, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, head of the armed forces, said the military had no interest in politics and was ousting Mr. Morsi because he had failed to fulfill “the hope for a national consensus.” Dozens were arrested, including Mohammed Badie, the group’s supreme guide; his deputy, Rashad Bayoumi; and the head of its political wing, Saad el-Katatni. Also on the wanted list was Khairat el-Shater, the group’s powerful financier.
The general stood on a broad stage, flanked by Egypt’s top Muslim and Christian clerics as well as a spectrum of political leaders including Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and liberal icon, and Galal Morra, a prominent Islamist ultraconservative, or Salafi, all of whom endorsed the takeover. The arrest campaign recalled the Muslim Brotherhood’s decades as a banned organization under autocratic rulers.
Despite their protestations, the move plunged the generals back to the center of political power for the second time in less than three years, after their ouster of President Mubarak in 2011. Their return threatened to cast a long shadow over future efforts to fulfill that revolution’s promise of a credible, civilian democracy. But General Sisi sought to present an image very different from the anonymous, numbered communiqués from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that were solemnly read over state television to announce Mr. Mubarak’s exit, and the general emphasized that the military had no desire to rule. “This is a police state back in action, and the same faces that were ousted with the Mubarak regime are now appearing on talk shows as analysts,” said a Brotherhood spokesman, Gehad el-Haddad, during an interview with Al Jazeera’s English satellite channel.
“The armed forces was the one to first announce that it is out of politics,” General Sisi said at the start. “It still is, and it will remain away from politics.” He repeated a conspiracy theory often cited by Islamists: what appeared to be an easing of electricity cuts and petrol shortages in recent days indicated that the shortfalls had been artificially created to feed discontent.
In Washington, President Obama met with his national security team to discuss the crisis while Secretary of State John Kerry and others called a variety of Egyptian officials urging them to restore democracy. “Did someone push a magic button, or was this all part of a plot?” Mr. Haddad asked.
“Members of the president’s national security team have been in touch with Egyptian officials and our regional partners to convey the importance of a quick and responsible return of full authority to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible,” said Bernadette Meehan, a White House spokeswoman. In a statement, the Brotherhood denounced “the military coup against the elected president and the will of the nation” and said it would refuse to deal with any resulting authority. Mr. Morsi’s supporters said their protests on Friday would be meant to “denounce the military coup against legitimacy and in support of the legitimacy of President Morsi.”
She said the administration wanted to see a “transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups; avoiding any arbitrary arrests of President Morsi and his supporters; and the responsibility of all groups and parties to avoid violence.” Much remains unclear about the new political structure that will emerge, though Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat, has been chosen to represent the liberal opposition.
The administration has notably not referred to the military intervention in Egypt as a coup — a phrase that could have implications for the $1.3 billion a year in American military aid to Egypt. American law requires the United States to cut financial assistance to nations where democratic governments are overthrown by the military or where the armed forces otherwise violate human rights. In a telephone interview, Mr. ElBaradei sought to justify the military’s intervention, calling it a chance to fix the transition to democracy that he said had gone off track after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, drew attention to that issue in an interview to be broadcast on CNN’s “State of the Union” this Sunday. “We just lost two and a half years,” he said. “As Yogi Berra said, ‘It is déjà vu all over again,’ but hopefully this time we will get it right.”
“If this were to be seen as a coup, then it would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian Armed Forces,” General Dempsey said in the interview, recorded on Wednesday. He also defended the arrests of Islamists, saying that he had been assured they would receive due process and that the shuttered television outlets had incited violence.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Kareem Fahim, Mayy El Sheikh and Ben Hubbard from Cairo; Mark Landler, Peter Baker and Thom Shanker from Washington; and Mona El-Naggar from New York.

“I would be the first one to shout loud and clearly if I see any sign of regression in terms of democracy,” he said.
Many of those who are poised exercise power in the emerging authority first got their jobs from Mr. Mubarak.
A Mubarak-appointed prosecutor general, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, returned to his office after a court ruling pushed out the man appointed by Mr. Morsi to replace him.
Mr. Mahmoud, who was equally detested by critics of both Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Morsi, called his return to office “a message for every ruler: You must respect your judiciary, and you must respect your judges.”
The pre-Morsi foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, was also back in the post on Thursday. Mr. Amr had continued to serve under Mr. Morsi but had been sidelined as Mr. Morsi sent other aides to meetings with President Obama and other officials, and he resigned during Mr. Morsi’s final days, a major blow.
Mr. Amr held a series of meetings with the foreign news media on Thursday aimed at refuting the idea that Egypt had undergone a military coup. He also laughed about his relationship with Mr. Morsi, suggesting he had given his foreign counterparts his own view of Egypt’s affairs.
“I was presenting the true picture of his country to the outside world,” he said. “I don’t mean to be blowing my own horn, but I believe that was respected by my counterparts.”
Even the police force, much despised by Mr. Mubarak’s opponents for trying to quash the protests that pushed him from power, has sought to portray itself as standing with the people in the new era.
Fahmy Bahgat, an officer who often speaks for the security services, said in a television interview that the generals’ move “returned the police to the arms of the people once more.”
He also threatened those who challenged the new order.
“Whoever tries to show any support for the ousted president will be met with the utmost resolve,” he said.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, and Rick Gladstone from New York.