Egypt: The officers’ war of terror; latest statements from the Egyptian left (updated Aug. 2)

But for many, the January 25 Revolution was not simply a quest for an elected government. It encompassed a host of demands for far-reaching institutional reforms and social and economic rights. These revolutionaries did not leave that narrative unchallenged. They pushed back against the military and its civilian partners, who sought to negotiate and construct a political system that could contain rather than amplify revolutionary demands for transformative change.

But the partisans of “bread, freedom, and social justice” remained on the margins long after Mubarak’s ouster. They struggled to resist the narratives of power. In doing so they faced one of the major paradoxes of revolutionary popular mobilization in Egypt that 25 January revealed. Those who took to the streets could build enough pressure to “veto” particular political realities. However, they had little to no sway to replace the realities they overturned. The people, in other words, possess the power to subvert, but without necessarily challenging the ability of the wielders of power to dictate what comes next.

The relevance of this paradox to the events and aftermath of 30 June 2013 cannot be more apparent. In the prelude to the 30 June protests, millions of disgruntled Egyptians signed the Tamarod Campaign petition, declaring:

As a member of the Egyptian people, I hereby declare that I withdraw my confidence from the President of the Republic Dr. Mohammed Morsi and call for early presidential elections. I vow to stay true to the goals of the revolution and work towards achieving them, as well as publicizing the Tamarod campaign amongst the ranks of the masses until together we can achieve a society of dignity, justice, and freedom.

This initiative began as an attempt to gather popular support for early presidential elections after Morsi’s failure to deliver on the demands of the January 25 Revolution. That effort is now ceding ground to actors that are even more hostile to the aspirations that the Tamarod petition articulated. It is true that those who took to the streets may have succeeded in overturning one the largest hurdles to revolutionary change in Egypt, namely the uneasy alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the entrenched centers of powers known as the “deep state.” The popular mobilization that culminated on 30 June made it impossible for the officers and the security establishment to hide their anti-democratic privileges behind the façade of democratic institutions and civilian punching bags. Yet the fact remains: the murderers of Khaled Said, Sayed Bilal, Mina Danial and Gaber Salah “Jika” are emerging triumphant in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster. They are actively exploiting popular disdain for Muslim Brotherhood rule to carve out an equally, if not more, regressive political order than the one that preceded it.

Similar to what they have done after 11 February 2011, the officers today are promoting a narrative in which they have (once again) intervened heroically to save the day and “protect the revolution.” Accordingly, after they helped oust Morsi out of power, the officers are now asking Egyptians for pay back. The people are now to offer a blind, if not supportive, eye to the military practices as it employs deadly force, repression and xenophobia to force its challengers into submission. The fear mongering discourse that the military has used as part of its “war on terror” initiative has clearly turned into more than just “words,” after security forces killed dozens of Muslim Brotherhood protesters Friday night, and dozens others in previous attacks. Yesterday’s brutal attacks came right after millions of Egyptians rallied in nationwide public gatherings in support of Minister of Defense Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s request for a popular mandate to deal with imminent “terrorist” threats. Many media outlets and opinion shapers in Egypt have uncritically expressed support for this alarming development. This pattern only highlights the extent to which advocates of dignity and justice in the country face an uphill battle in countering the attempts of the military and their allies to liquidate political dissent and dictate the terms of the new political order.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s record in power may have been so horrendous as to justify Morsi’s impeachment. But even so, what is undeniable is that the military’s violent campaign against Brotherhood supporters and the propagation of xenophobic discourse against its activists, as well as any explicit or implicit endorsement of such efforts stand in complete contradiction with the professed principles of the January 25 Revolution. They also defy the vision of a humane, just social order that many individuals have sacrificed their lives or body parts for the past two and a half years. There can be no freedom in a country where media outlets are shut down because they fail to toe the official line and where individuals face the threat of arrest, slander, and violent retribution for their political views. There can be no justice in a country where a former president and his associates are being held accountable for suspected wrong-doings through a process dominated by the very system that has killed unarmed protesters, conducted virginity tests, and have long subjected Egyptians to torture, humiliation, and abuse. There can be no dignity in a country where the coercive apparatus of the old Mubarak regime is reconstituting itself under the guise of a counter-terrorism initiative. The Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders are guilty for failing to build an Egypt that lives up to the demands of the January 25 Revolution. But their former allies among the officers who are ruling today are just as guilty.

What is next for Egypt? There is little doubt that the military-sponsored transitional framework—like its predecessor—is structurally unfit to deal with the rampant social inequalities that have long animated the conflict between large social segments and the Egyptian state. The current transition is primarily aimed at shielding state institutions from popular demands for revolutionary change. Simply replacing the Muslim Brotherhood with a new cadre of military-allied civilians, even under the framework of democratic institutions, will not quell the struggle for bread, freedom, and social justice. Thus, some might argue that it is only a matter of time before an open clash ensues between advocates of transformative change and the military-led political order. But even if such a clash is probable, the minority who opposes both the military and the Muslim Brotherhood face significant challenges. The events of this last week are painful evidence of the tough road ahead. The January 25 Revolution now faces a fight for its existence in an environment in which power and resistance are more convoluted than ever.

Egyptian Socialist Party leader: Revolution 'reloaded'

By Mamdouh Habashi, Egyptian Socialist Party

July 16, 2013 -- ESSF -- The Egyptian people launched [June 30] one of the largest and widest movements ever in the history of this nation and in the history of the world. In an unprecedented manner, the degree of political struggle increases to defend the integrity of the society and civil state against that dictatorship of obscurantism supported by world imperialism. The change in the US strategy was clear since the beginning of the uprisings in the Arab region three years ago; the US put now their strategy on the Islamist allied forces for the continuation of the policy of total dependence, in order to guarantee that the countries of the whole region will remain bound in this strategy. On the other hand, these Islamists have sufficiently demonstrated to the USA that they are willing to give everything to stay in power ... no matter what the cost.

The Egyptian people succeeded with this powerful movement to draw to his side important hesitant sectors in the armed forces who have felt the dangers of domination and plans of the Muslim Brothers and their allies. On the other hand, these sectors felt the dangers that such a mass movement might cause in terms of possible radical changes that threaten the essence of the existing social order.

This popular movement led, with the support of the military, to remove the Muslim Brothers and their allies from power. Thus began a new political phase, its nature, type and shape depend on the contradictions and power relations within the movement.

It is logical that the cruelty and brutality of the religious right wing groups grow in such a desperate situation. Nothing is more difficult for any political force than to find itself exposed to the hatred of such broad masses, populists and demagogues in the first place.

The reasoning of the Islamist counter-revolution is built on two big lies, the first; they had achieved power through legal and legitimate means, and the second; they have been removed from this legitimate power by means of a military coup.

The range of forces that make up the camp of the anti-Islamist movement is versatile. It ranges from supporters of the Mubarak regime (here you have to admit for the sake of objectivity that their performance in this movement was extremely strong) via liberal conservatives, leftists and nationalists up to key military and even security institutions. This is an extremely complex and unique composition.

The flood of the spontaneous mass movement was much larger than the most optimistic expectations. Two main factors have contributed to that; the extremely poor level and performance of power of the religious right, as well as the active role of the independent Egyptian satellite TV channels.

The amount and nature of the army intervention was a strategic surprise for the authority’s circles responsible for Egypt in the US Administration. Therefore these circles, both in the US and in the EU, could not initially take a clear stance on the recent developments in Egypt.

The foreign policy makers in these Western counties fear unpredictable radical transformations in Egypt, their repercussions and influences in the region would be inevitable. This would thwart the famous American long-term strategy to make the entire region sinking into religious and ethnic sectarian conflicts. One can see the beginnings of these conflicts in the proclaimed plans by the Muslim Brothers to set up a part of Sinai Peninsula as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians from Gaza and to privatize the Suez Canal, and thus depriving the Egyptians of one of the most important symbols of their national pride.

It has become obvious that the US and some other Western powers in the EU have fought on the side of the counter-revolution. No profound political changes in Egypt could be initiated without that the United States would move heaven and earth to prevent just that. Guido Westerwelle said even, that what has happened in Egypt is a failure of democracy. Similar was the explanation of the British Foreign Minister. Such declarations seem like brazen hypocrisy if you consider the fact that the West knows pretty much what kind of “democracy” the Muslim Brothers and their allied Salafists think with their Islamic state. Why is the Islamic state in Egypt democratic and Iran not?! The same West was not concerned about democracy and human rights at that time as the same army shoot the peaceful Egyptian demonstrators and its military vehicles run over their bodies. But when this army on June 30th 2013 executes the extreme powerful and unmistakable expressed will of the people the West suddenly sees a threat to democracy.

It is expected that the activities of the counter-revolution to terrorize the Egyptian people will be beyond imagination... We know from the last after-revolution-period that the violence on the streets and squares, the constant provocation of the army to get involved more and more in the spiral of violence, the terrorist attacks on the Sinai Peninsula, the religious-sectarian bloody conflicts in Upper Egypt, which are artificially lit, bomb attacks on vital locations or the assassination of political or military leaders ... etc. all of this is a double-edged sword which costs the Egyptian people already morally and materially huge losses and now unfortunately comes up again.

Today it is quite unlikely that Egypt would fall into a civil war or chaos because the popularity of the Muslim Brothers and Salafists fades to a surprising degree. However, this level of violence increasingly provoked by the Islamists prevents the democratisation process and paves the way for more and more dictatorial components in this process.

In the face of these serious risks we hear today, mainly by the United States, appeals for a social reconciliation. Most of the liberal-conservative forces and even some left have been taken for a ride by this appeal. They completely ignore the opportunistic nature of the religious right which has never respected one political agreement in the past. The submitted example of the Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is very deceiving here. The reconciliation there was based on the clear waiver of the whites on racial discrimination, even the criminalisation of it. Such a turn or agreement between the civilian secular forces and sectarian religious fanatics is currently unimaginable in Egypt.

All this represents an existential challenge to the leftist revolutionary and democratic forces; they must maintain this high level of mobilisation of the masses upright and organize them into all kinds of organisations. The democratic forces today and during this critical transitional period have to accept the diversity of the front against the Islamists, consider their heterogeneity or even inhomogeneity support it but carefully distinguish between secondary and major conflicts.

The immediate unity of all left parties is now more urgent than ever ... to be or not to be ... This would also lead – among many other benefits -- to organize hundreds of thousands of young revolutionaries who have refused until now the organisation and thus do not have a comprehensive strategic vision, often splintering, swallowed by other reactionary organisation and even disintegrated, despite their undisputed heroic role in the revolution.

The ousted President Mursi came to power in the wake of a revolution with which nothing is linked to him, thus he doesn’t deserve any special place in it and is not entitled to make himself one of its representatives. This president is a member of a group that understands the foundation of the modern Egyptian state as a turning away from Islam and therefore tried to demolish it. This group replaces the national foundations with religious shrines, Egypt is not the goal but the Islamic “nation” which covers all Muslims around the world and is in conflict with all other “nations” in the world; Christianity -- or the “crusaders” -- Judaism and perhaps Buddhism and Hinduism also. This group does not require constitution in which power emanates solely from the people, not a constitution in which the ratio is the source of legislation, BUT, this group calls for a constitution that God is still the source of legitimacy, and the Islamic Shari’a – whatever that may mean – should be the only source of legislation ... Human beings are not authorised and not capable to make their laws and only their scholars are authorised to interpret these “Shari’a”. Accordingly, the democracy as it has taken its present bourgeois form through the past three centuries in modern societies is just a fad in the West which they planted in our societies to fight against Islam. That the Islamists today accept the rules of exactly this democracy, they see that as a necessarily temporary transition until they attained alone the absolute rule in all areas and corners of the state and society, found the Islamic state in Egypt, then in the region to realize the resurrection of the caliphate.

This is the ideology of the group as it was formulated and circulated by their leaders since its establishment in 1928 in the lap of the British colonial power -- and in its service – until today. What do those ideas have to do with the ideas and principles of the Revolution of January 25th 2011?! The ladies and gentlemen Advisor of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the USA, UK and the Federal Republic of Germany should know the answer, and if they do not know, then the problem is even greater.

In Egypt, no one, no enemy and no friend of the Islamists, can deny that they have cooperated with the Mubarak regime and made “deals”, even after the people’s uprising on January 25th 2011 started. In the beginning the Muslim Brothers declared that they are against this rebellion. The Muslim Brothers have suddenly changed their anti-revolution stance on the fourth day of the uprising, two days after the Americans had proclaimed the twist of their position by 180 °, i.e. after it became clear that the people’s rebellion is the winning horse in this race. The problem then was that the forces of the revolution had no organisation that could give them access to power at the moment when the power was only a few steps away. At this critical moment Egypt had only two political forces that have an appropriate organisation, the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. The two have made together a deal after the other in a period which was characterised by extreme political instability and severe stresses. As the situation on June 30th 2012 has been finally stabilised or leveled with the election of Mursi, the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, as the first elected President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, began for the Egyptians a new but very strange period.

The seizure of power by the Muslim Brothers was not only a continuation of the Mubarak regime at all levels but they surpassed it in its capacity to ignore the demands of the masses. The West has since the start of the so-called Arab Spring adopted the so-called Islamic project for the entire Middle East as its long-term strategy. In this strategy the Muslim Brothers in Egypt play a central role, therefore the direct and revealed support from the United States, EU and Israel. This made the Muslim Brothers lose their balance. Absolute power, the complete absence of any institutional supervision in the society, the fact that their only concern was the distribution of the “spoils of war” and the “Muslim Brotherising” of all key positions in the state, all that have exposed them and their goals in wide circles of the population. For the first time in their modern history the Egyptians feel concerned about their national identity. This anxiety has partially robbed the burning social issues their utmost priority.

Is that what the Muslim Brothers have done with the help of their allies in the West “democracy”? Or is it a coup against the revolution of January 2011?

No, this is a new attempt to rape this revolution with all its attendant dreams of the Egyptians to live in freedom and social justice and human dignity.

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The following is an excerpt from an article by Tony Iltis in the July 30, 2013, Green Left Weekly.

Millions protesters of were again in the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities on July 26, both for and against the former Muslim Brotherhood government. Security forces attacked the pro-Morsi protesters, killing many in a fresh massacre. Ahram Online reported that these were the largest mobilisations since the June 30 protests that brought down the elected, but increasingly unpopular, Muslim Brotherhood-aligned government of President Mohamed Morsi.

Ahram Online said on July 27 that vice-president Mohamed El-Baradei condemned the army's “excessive use of force”. However, the National Salvation Front of which he is spokesperson, while expressing regret at the deaths, blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the provocations. The April 6 Movement, a youthful grassroots group that played an important role in bringing down former dictator Hosni Mubarack, also condemned the bloodshed. The group, which had opposed Morsi's rule, had not been part of the July 26 pro-military march.

The June 30 protests were the result of grassroots organisation, but the fall of Morsi was secured by the army switching sides to the opposition on July 3. Since then, Morsi has been in military custody. However, his Islamist supporters have held continual sit-ins and mass protests on Fridays that have drawn tens of thousands are increasing in size.

Pro-Morsi protests on July 26 were the largest so far. However, they were decisively outnumbered by anti-Morsi protests, Ahram Online said, with hundreds of thousands packing Tahrir Square. However, these anti-Morsi mobilisations were not spontaneous ― nor the result of grassroots organising. They were called on July 24 by General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, armed forces commander, deputy PM and defence minister, as a mandate for security forces to “deal with violence and potential terrorism”.

Ahram Online also reported a third, much smaller protest on July 26, opposing both the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. A statement by those at the third protest read: “We are a group of Egyptians that participated in the January revolution against the corruption of the Mubarak state for 30 years.

“We went to the streets against [former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Field Marshal Hussein] Tantawi … during the SCAF rule in the transitional period, and we went down against Morsi’s state corruption and his religious fascism …

“We went to the streets today to reject the intervention of the Egyptian army in politics and to denounce the minister of defence calling for Egyptians to be mandated to kill other Egyptians, claiming it is to fight terrorism.”

Among the organisers of this protest were the April 6 Youth Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists.

Egyptian Socialist Party

Mamdouh Habashi, co-founder of the Egyptian Socialist Party (ESP), told Green Left Weekly ahead of the July 26 marches that the army wanted to avoid exercising power directly as it did in 2011-2012.

“The army is still standing behind everything, but the army is not leading the government,” he said. “It’s not like the government two years ago that was under the complete control of the army leadership.

“We shall be having a series of elections soon. Not only the parliamentary elections but presidential elections, elections of communities and municipalities and elections of civil society forces like professional unions and so on.”

He said the constitutional process would reveal the differences between the aspirations of the revolutionary movement and the liberal establishment politicians who since July 3 have emerged as its unaccountable spokespeople.

“Many of these forces, including the army and the old state, don’t want to have a social debate: a debate involving the whole society in which everybody can contribute their opinion. Many of them want to limit it to 10 experts, or a discussion of about 50 people.

“We are calling for a real grassroots discussion … The second problem is the points to change. Many of them are discussing only abstract points of liberties, the powers of the presidency and so on.

“We are insisting to include the points of individual rights, of citizens’ rights, of social rights, of economic rights. The right to health care, the right to education, the right to housing and so on.”

Left unity

The ESP believes disunity is weakening the voice of the left. “We are trying to build a bloc of left parties at the moment and after that this bloc will coalesce with the nationalists. If we succeed in building this bloc between the left and the nationalists, we will change the balance of forces.”

However, the different approaches of the ESP and Revolutionary Socialists to the anti-democratic armed forces and the mass democratic movement now supporting them shows that uniting the left is not straightforward. Both groups agree that the inability of the grassroots movement to present its own leadership, vision and organisation has allowed the Islamists, military and liberal politicians to repeatedly gain the benefits of mass uprisings. They attribute this to the movement’s inexperience but emphasise it is developing rapidly.

Habashi told GLW: “At the first stage of the revolution, the forces that carried the revolution out, mainly the young people, were organised to fight against all kinds of brutalisation.

“But they were still influenced by the media and other counter-revolutionary forces to view the main conflict as not between the revolutionary forces and counter-revolutionary forces, but as a generational conflict.

“They believed that they could succeed in doing everything only with the help of cyberspace organisations like Twitter and Facebook and so on. They succeeded to drop Hosni Mubarak and his regime from power, so they imagined in the beginning that they could move mountains.

“Nevertheless, after a few months they recognised that they needed another form of organisation, that their form of organisation was enough to abolish something, but not to build something new.

“The lesson was very painful, because they recognised that only the forces in society that have big organisation, very classical forms of organisation, get power … That was the state, represented by the army, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“All the revolutionary forces, because they did not have the real mass organisation, lost.

“That was the main lesson that made the young people recognise the necessity of organisation. Therefore, they have engaged in many kinds of organisation … and formed political parties but without knowing what is the essence of a political party …

“They don’t understand the difference between liberal and left. They don’t understand the ideological background of different parties.

“This is also something they have to learn through doing. They can never learn it through reading or studying, but only by doing, and these things take time.”

Egypt: 'Do not let the army fool you'

Statement from Fatma Ramadan, member of the executive committee of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (original Arabic here), translated by Sara Ajlyakin, edited by Anne Alexander.

Al-Sisi’s “permission” is a deadly poison

July 26, 2013 -- MENA Solidarity Network -- My comrades, the workers of Egypt are struggling for their rights and for a better Egypt. Egypt’s workers dream of freedom and social justice, they dream of work at a time when thieves who are called businessmen close down factories to pocket billions. Egypt’s workers dream of fair wages under the rule of a governments that are only interested in promoting investment at the expense of workers and their rights, and even their lives. Egypt’s workers dream of a better life for their children. They dream of medicine when they are sick, but they do not find it. They dream of four walls in which they can take shelter.

Since before the 25th of January and you have been demanding your rights, and your strikes and demonstrations for the same unanswered demands continued after Mubarak’s overthrow. Both the Muslim Brotherhood and the military have negotiated left, right and centre, not once having in mind your demands and rights. All they have in mind is how to put out the sparks you have lit with your struggle in times of darkness, even these sparks all burned in isolation from each other.

Did not the military forcibly end your strikes in Suez, Cairo, Fayyoum, and all over Egypt ? Did not the military arrest many of you and subject you to military trials just for practising your right to organize, strike, and protest peacefully? Have they not adamantly worked to criminalize this right through legislation banning all Egyptians from organizing peaceful protests, strikes, and sit-ins?

Then came Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who followed in Mubarak’s footsteps with dismissals, arrests, and smashing strikes by force. It was Mursi who sent police dogs against workers at Titan Cement in Alexandria, acting through the Minister of the Interior and his men. The same police and army officers who are right now being carried shoulder-high are killers, the killers of honest, young Egyptians. They are the authorities’ weapon against us all – and always will remain so unless these institutions are cleansed.

The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are planning crimes against Egyptian people on a daily basis, which have caused the killing of innocent people, while the army and the police are facing these with brutal violence and murder. But let each of us remember, when do the army and police intervene? They intervene long after clashes have begun and are almost coming to an end, after blood has been spilled. Ask yourselves, why don’t they prevent these crimes committed by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Egyptian people before they start? Ask yourselves, in whose interest is this continuation of fighting and blood-letting? It is in the interest of both the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood and the military together. Just as the poor are cannon-fodder for wars between states, Egypt’s poor, workers and peasants, are fuel for internal war and conflict. Has not the doorman’s innocent son been killed in Mokattam, and in Giza as well?

Today, we have been asked to go out and authorize Al-Sisi’s killing spree, and we find all three trade union federations in agreement: the government’ Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC), and the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) (of which I am a member of the Executive Committee). I debated with members of the EFITU executive committee in order to convince them not to issue a statement calling on its members and the Egyptian people to go down on Friday, confirming that the army, the police, and the people are one hand as stated in the statement. I was in the minority, winning four other votes versus nine votes, and thus all three trade union federations called for workers to join the protests on the pretext of fighting terrorism.

We are thus faced with jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. The Muslim Brotherhood committed crimes and it must be held accountable and prosecuted for them, just like police and army officers and men of the Mubarak regime must be held accountable and prosecuted for their crimes. Do not be fooled into replacing a religious dictatorship with a military dictatorship.

Workers of Egypt, be aware, for your demands are crystal clear. You want work for you and your children, you want fair pay, laws that protect your rights against the laws that the businessmen of Mubarak have designed to protect their interests against your rights. You want a state which has a real plan for development, opening new factories in order to absorb a growing labour force. You want freedom, freedom of all kinds, freedom to organize, freedom to strike. You want a country where you can live as free citizens without torture or murder. You have to specify what stands between you and these demands. Do not be fooled and let them take you to battles not your own. Do not listen to those who ask of you today and tomorrow to stop pressing for these demands and rights on the pretext of fighting terrorism

Revolutionary Socialists: The military's new massacres

July 29, 2013 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Soldiers opened fire on a sit-in protest by Muslim Brotherhood members outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo, killing at least 72 people and injuring scores more. It was the deadliest of clashes across Egypt last weekend between security forces and supporters of the Brotherhood and ousted President Mohamed Morsi, who was forced from office at the beginning of July. By early Sunday, the death toll across the country was 80.

Both military officials and leaders of the Egyptian government appointed after Morsi's downfall--including interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a leader of the National Salvation Front formed in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood government last year--blamed the Brotherhood for "causing a crisis" and even starting the violence. But eyewitnesses to the carnage that began in the early morning hours Saturday said the soldiers opened fire on demonstrators. Ahram Online reported that doctors in field hospitals where casualties were brought said the victims were "shot with live ammunition that targeted the head or chest. 'These are shots aimed to kill, not to disperse,' [one doctor] said."

Morsi was elected president only one year ago, but he and the Brotherhood lost popular support, especially after they tried to ram through a constitutional declaration that enshrined the political power of Islamist forces. A petition campaign, known as "Tamarod" (Rebellion), calling on Morsi to resign spread across the country, culminating in one of the biggest days of mass demonstrations in world history on June 30. Several days later, the military stepped in to officially remove Morsi from power, appoint an interim president and promise new elections.

The Brotherhood refused to accept Morsi's ouster and organized its members for demonstrations, including the ongoing sit-in near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo. Revolutionaries say the Brotherhood has continued the violent attacks--a regular feature under Morsi--against left-wing opponents and members of the Coptic minority.

Over the course of July, the military and security forces have become increasingly bold in their repression against the Brotherhood. These forces were once associated in many Egyptians' minds with the three-decade dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak that was overthrown in the February 2011 revolution, and then with the repressive rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that followed--sometimes in alliance with the Brotherhood and sometimes in opposition to it. Since Morsi's ouster, however, the security apparatus and remnants of the old Mubarak regime, known as the feloul, have regained some of their former support.

Thus, when Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the head of the armed forces, called for demonstrations last Friday to show a popular "mandate" for the military's moves against the Brotherhood, large numbers answered the call. In the aftermath of the weekend's violence, many of the organizations and leading figures from the Tamarod movement--including three presidential candidates from last year's election, ElBaradei, Hamdeen Sabahi and Amr Moussa--called for an investigation of the shootings, but generally blamed the Brotherhood for the deaths and refused to oppose the escalating repression.

Below, we are publishing three statements by the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt. The first was issued before last Friday's demonstration and opposed the pro-military mobilization, while defending the mass rebellion that led to Morsi's downfall. The two others were issued on Sunday as the death toll from the weekend mounted.

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