Senate rejects proposal to halt aid
By a vote of 86-13, the U.S. Senate rejected a proposal Wednesday to take money meant for aid to Egypt and instead spend it on building bridges at home.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s amendment to next year’s transportation bill would have halted the $1.5 billion in assistance, most of it military, the U.S. gives Egypt each year.
Paul cited U.S. law that bans most forms of support for countries that suffer a military coup. The administration has said it won’t make that determination about the Egyptian army’s July 3 ouster of the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
— Associated Press
Protesters holding sticks and wearing helmets and makeshift body armor stand behind mounds of sandbags, tires and brick walls. They change guards every two hours to ensure they stay alert.
With Egypt’s military-backed government signaling a crackdown is imminent, supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi are taking no chances with security at their two protest camps in Cairo.
On Wednesday, the Cabinet ordered the police to break up the sit-ins, saying they pose an “unacceptable threat” to national security.
Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said the order will be carried out in gradual steps according to instructions from prosecutors. “I hope they resort to reason” and leave without authorities having to move in, he said.
Ahmed Sobaie, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, derided the Cabinet decision as “paving the way for another massacre.”
“The police state is getting ready to commit more massacres against the innocent, unarmed civilians holding sit-ins for the sake of legitimacy,” he said.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf appealed to the military-led government to avoid violence. “We have continued to urge the interim government officials and security forces to respect the right of peaceful assembly,” she said. “That obviously includes sit-ins.”
Organizers are portraying the sit-ins outside the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque in eastern Cairo and a smaller one across the city near Cairo University’s main campus as evidence of an enduring support base for Morsi’s once-dominant Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood has so far refused to cooperate with the country’s interim leaders, whom it calls “traitors,” or participate in a military-backed fast-track transition plan to return to a democratically elected government by early next year. Instead it tries to keep thousands of supporters camped out in tents decorated with photos of Morsi, occupying a cross-shaped intersection facing the mosque.
Authorities have already cracked down on the organization, arresting Morsi and other senior leaders. On Wednesday, Egyptian prosecutors referred three top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to trial for allegedly inciting the killing of at least eight protesters last month outside the group’s Cairo headquarters.
Security forces also have killed more than 130 protesters during clashes outside the camps on two occasions.
The overwhelming majority of the protesters echo the demands of the Brotherhood leaders still free: Reinstate Morsi, reverse all measures taken by the military, including the suspension of the disputed constitution and the disbanding of the Islamist-controlled legislature.
But privately, the Rabaah protesters acknowledge that their sit-in is their last bargaining chip in the face of a fierce onslaught by the military and loyal media that label the encampment as a hideout for terrorists. Islamic militants also have been stepping up attacks against security forces in lawless areas in the Sinai Peninsula, raising fears that extremists could exploit the anger about Morsi’s removal to spread insurgency.
While “victory or martyrdom” seems to be a favorite slogan for a majority of protesters, Gamal Radwan, a Muslim Brotherhood member from the industrial city of Mahallah in the Nile Delta, said: “At the end, we must reach the negotiating (table). There must be concessions and a meeting point. … Now this is the time for pressure. You press here and I press there until we reach a point that is satisfactory to all of us.”
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