Egypt orders arrest of Brotherhood leaders
Egypt’s prosecutor ordered the arrest on Wednesday of the leaders of ousted President Mohammed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, charging them with inciting violence that saw 55 of their members shot dead.
Egypt’s prosecutor ordered the arrest on Wednesday of the leaders of ousted President Mohammed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, charging them with inciting violence that saw 55 of their members shot dead.
A week after the army toppled Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, the bloodshed on Monday has opened fissures in the Arab world’s most populous country, with levels of bitterness unseen in its modern history.
Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said the announcement of charges against leader Mohamed Badie and several other senior figures was a bid by authorities to break up a vigil by thousands of Mursi supporters demanding his reinstatement.
The leaders were charged with inciting the violence which began before dawn, when the Brotherhood says its followers were fired on while peacefully praying. The army says terrorists provoked the shooting by attacking its troops.
In a police state when the police force are criminals, the judiciary are traitors, and the investigators are the fabricators, what can one do?
The past week’s violence alarmed Western donors and Israel, which has a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Washington, treading a careful line, has neither welcomed Mursi’s removal nor denounced it as a “coup”, which under US law would require it to halt aid including the US$1.3 billion it gives the army each year.