Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 14, Week 1, Day 5.

With the funerals taking place on Sunday (28/7/13) Egypt is largely trying to find a way forward after clashes on Friday/Saturday (26-27/7/13) between the Muslim Brotherhood and most everybody else left 80 dead. The situation has been made much worse by western interference.

On Saturday (27/7/13) the US Secretary of State John Kerry issued a written statement in which he described the events of the previous night to be a pivotal moment for Egypt and urged leaders from across the political spectrum to help the nation step back from the brink. Specifically citing the military's "moral and legal obligation" to respect the right of peaceful protest this was a not particularly coded threat to prevent the Egyptian military from bringing an end to the Muslim Brotherhood's protests. Today the French Foreign Ministry called for Mohamed Morsi's immediate release while the European Unions (EU) spokesperson for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton visited Morsi in prison, met with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process. Rather than being driven by any genuine understanding of the reality of the situation in Egypt these comments all stem from the fact that after the January 25th revolution the US and the EU members states promised the Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar that they would deliver a Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in return for gas and oil. Now the Egyptian people have rejected that government the US and the EU are trying their damnedest to reimpose the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian people. This is particularly dangerous because it helps fuel the Brotherhood's delusions of legitimacy. For example less then 24 hours after roughly 1/3rd of the entire Egyptian population took to the streets in support of the military the vice-President of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party Essam al-Erain gave a public address directed at the leader of the military Abdel Fattah El-Sisi claiming that "the Egyptian people have rejected the military coup." In my experience it is impossible to negotiate with people who are that utterly detached from reality.

One area where this western interference has already had a damaging impact on Egypt is the detention of Mohamed Morsi. Clearly acting in response to western complaints about arbitrary detention on Friday (26/7/13) it was announced that Morsi is to face charges including murder over his escape from the Wadi al-Natrun prison in 2011. This could have a destabilising effect on Egypt as a whole because providing you don't look too closely the allegation portrays Morsi as an ally of Hamas and by extension the current Egyptian government as an enemy of Hamas. This is could prove highly inflammatory particularly in terms of the current operation in the Sinai even though in the intervening years it seems clear Hamas' allegiances have shifted. It is also particularly damaging for Morsi personally because the general consensus is that he is guilty of the offence it was just overlooked in the spirit of goodwill that followed the downfall of Mubarak. With Egyptian Courts now being forced to revisit the issue it is highly likely that Morsi will now be convicted and spend the rest of this life in prison. This is also bad for Egypt as a whole because if Morsi was being held merely to prevent him inciting violence his detention could have been used as a way to negotiate the end of the Muslim Brotherhood's protests because once that threat of violence had passed Morsi could have been released.

Away from UK Baroness Ashton's meddling the Egypt's interim government have put forward some sensible suggestions of their own to help bring about the peace and stability needed to allow for a democratic transition. The most controversial of these has been the announcement that the Interior Ministry will resume it's work monitoring extremist political and religious groups. This is controversial because under Mubarak this department was extensively misused in order to suppress all forms of political dissent. However I actually feel that the Interior Ministry has been failing in its duty to the people by not carrying out this work. That's because even in the most democratic nations such as the US there are government departments dedicated to monitoring violent extremists with both religious or political ideologies. So provided the Interior Ministry limits its work to those groups who pose a real risk of violence rather than groups with an ideology the government simply disapproves of I consider this part of Egypt's move towards democracy.

The Interior Ministry has also announced that it will be reviewing the employment of police officers who are also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again this strikes me as very sensible because under Morsi there was a concerted effort by the Brotherhood to pack the apparatus of state such as local governorships and the police force with its members. Now with the Brotherhood trying to portray themselves as the victims of a violent coup it is entirely possible that its members within the police and security forces will deliberately attack demonstrators in order to damage the reputation of the government. Finally it has been announced that visitors to Egypt from Yemen will have to obtain visas and security clearance before attempt to travel. Again this strikes me as a sensible temporary precaution. Yemen has a particular problem with a terrorist insurgency and there is a general feeling that Yemen's militants are controlled by Saudi Arabia. Therefore if Saudi Arabia were to attempt to destabilise Egypt one of the main ways they would go about it is by exporting militants from Yemen to Egypt.

Some people have suggested that these new security measure mark a return to Mubarak and his state of emergency laws. However I think that there is a legitimate need to extra, temporary security measures because at present Egypt is pretty much in a state of emergency. In the Sinai alone on Sunday a police officer was wounded in a gun attack on a police station in Arish, a Coptic Christian was kidnapped simply for being a Christian, an RPG attack on local government building injured three and a bomb exploded at Arish's 3rd police station resulting in no injuries. There is also evidence that the violence is spreading beyond the Sinai with 29 being injured in clashes between Brotherhood supporters and local residents in Port Said on Sunday following Brotherhood attacks on a Church, police vehicles and private cars and shops. Also on Sunday in Giza Brotherhood supporters threatened to destroy all of Egypt's power stations unless Morsi was reinstated before they were attacked by local residents. On Monday in Ismailia 18 were injured after the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to march from their protest camp at the Saleheen Mosque to the local security department building only to be attacked by local residents while a bomb was reportedly detonated in an Ismailia district close to the Suez Canal.

Further demonstrating that far from being peaceful protests the Muslim Brotherhood camps are actually centres for serious and violent criminal activity on Saturday the unidentified body of a man was discovered Sunday close to the Brotherhood's protest camp at the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque in Nasr city. He had been tortured to death. On Monday a further 11 bodies were discovered all showing similar signs of torture. This is on top to the 10 formal complaints by local residents that had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the Rabea al-Adaweya protest.

The interim President has also announced that the interim Prime Minister has been given the authority to give the military permission to arrest people. Rather then being an attempt to instate a military dictatorship this strikes me as an attempt to move forward with the law and order policy I proposed here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egypts-continuing-revolution-month-13_6.html

Being my idea I obviously fully support this idea. However the need for the military to be able to take action to keep the peace should be obvious following the events on Mosky Street in Cairo on Monday. Here an argument between street vendors and a local shop keeper got out of hand leading to the shop keeper shooting and killing two of the street vendors. Their friends and relatives responded by petrol bombing the shop causing around 13 people to be burned to death. If the military had been able to break this argument up at an early stage by arresting and cautioning those involved for the common law offence of affray this type of incident could have been avoided and people across Egypt would be forced to find more civil ways to resolve their disputes.

21:00 on 30/7/13.