Egypt Uprising 2013: Morsi Ousted

July 3, 2013  -Updated

The road-map is out

A joint statement was made. It started by General Abd El Fattah El Sisi, Minister of Defense who said that they "listened to the message of Egyptians in all cities and villages all over the country". He continued: "after trying many times since November to fix things and found all suggestions were met by refusal from the presidency,  and since the president's speech yesterday was not accepted by the people, the Armed Forces had to take the responsibility after talking with all political, religious and youth figures".  He declared that the Armed Forces will not take part in politics and gave a road-map with the following:

• Temporary suspension of the current constitution.
• Appointing the Supreme Constitutional Court Head as an interim president for a transitional period until a new president is elected. He will also be given the right of issuing constitutional declarations. 
• Forming a cross-party panel to propose amendments to the constitution.
• Forming a committee to handle national reconciliation and put mechanisms to ensure that Egypt enjoys a free media. 
• Forming a new technocrat government with full powers.
• Sisi has also appealed the Supreme Constitutional Court to accept a draft parliamentary elections law to be able to hold the elections for the lower house as soon as possible.

68 year old Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court is now Egypt's interim president, CV here [AR]

Celebrations and clashes
 
Massive celebrations took place in different cities across the country. The revolution that had started as a celebration have toppled a president with an even greater celebration. But this time something was different, amid the celebratory atmosphere rose worry.

As the majority celebrated, clashes still took place in some cities, especially in Upper Egypt in the cities of Minya, Sohag and Assuit where the Jihad Salafist groups have the most influence. This is doomed to increase after the army has closed four Islamist channels (Al Jazeera Mubasher Masr of Qatar, Misr 25 of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Hafez and Al Nas) and arrested their teams but let them go afterwards. It was also announced that many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders were either arrested or banned from traveling and that now Former President Mohamed Morsi is under house arrest in Ministry of Defense.

The biased Western media and governments which believe that what happened was a military coup, rather than a people's movement that forced the military to move made revolutionaries sure that more violence will soon follow. This was even clearer when Barack Obama, U.S. President expressed his deep concern regarding the coup that toppled the democratically elected president, he also called upon the army not to randomly arrest Morsi and his supporters.

This came after Morsi himself called upon people to not allow this coup and fight for legitimacy and was supported by Gehad El Hadad, who spoke to foreign media assuring them that this was nothing but a military coup.

It is clear that we still have a long way to go, and this is why Mahmoud Badr, Founder of Tamarod Movement called for people to stay in the squares during his speech in the joint statement....

What's next?

Many things are worrying now:

• Shura Council (the Parliament Upper House) that was voted for by 2% of the people is still in power.
• We don't know how long the transitional period would be.
• We don't know who would be the new prime minister, who will be the actual ruler.
• We don't know what influence would the SCAF have on the government.
• We don't know how the panel that will propose constitutional amendments be formed, or even how much will it be allowed to change.
• We don't know what would be the reaction of the Islamists who are clearly supported by the West, seeing how Western media covers a revolution as a military coup. What can they do? Certainly a lot, terrorize people, make more terrorist attacks in Sinai, use external help, who knows what else they could do.
• We don't know the fate of the former president and Islamist leaders, who actually put the country in the current situation with the help of Morsi, even if they're arrested.
• We don't know the fate of freedom of expression.
• We don't really know, at all, if this transitional period will result in the Egypt that has been the dream of every revolutionary who's been taking to the streets for the past two and half years to achieve it. We don't know if it will bring us any closer to justice, a dignified life for everyone, equality between genders, creeds  and races, social justice, and freedom.
• We don't know if there is a plan that assures that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups don't turn into terrorists or even underground groups which would definitely backfire on us in the near or far future, because it was clear that all scenarios used by former presidents have failed.

There is so much work on the way, the revolution is far from over....

Egypitans and Islamists "don't mix"....