Egyptian Security Forces Storm Pro-Morsi Camps Leaving Nearly 100 Dead

After weeks of protesting the ousting of Morsi (forming encampments in Cairo during that time), the Egyptian security forces forcibly broke up the protesters' camps early this morning. Things quickly turned violent, leaving around one hundred people dead, including at least two journalists. The interim President has also declared an indefinite state of emergency, "allowing security forces to arrest and detain civilians indefinitely without charge." The AP reports that clashes are not isolated to Cairo: "Dozens of people have been killed across Egypt Wednesday in clashes between security forces and supporters of Morsi."

Democracy is a difficult choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Egypt is learning in a very painful way that democracy has unintended results for the people (military and big business) traditionally used to getting everything they want. This is why Turkey is cutting its military leadership off at the knees and everyone else is getting military-sponsored governments.

Re:Not a Coup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which media outlet claims it wasn't? Every media I have seen suggested a coup in the very beginning. A lesson for any nation: first formulate a fair and balanced constitution, then select a interim government to built the core facilities required to start satisfying the requirements of the constitution, after which you choose a president. Not the other way around.

Re:So Much for Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The situation isn't nearly as simple as you imply. Morsi won the election then suspended parliament and set out on a year-long agenda to usurp power and push though the Muslim Brotherhood's view of Egypt's future, which is far more religious than most Egyptians want. I know that we in the west expect our elected politicians to break most of their campaign promises and then do what they had secretly planned to do all along as soon as they are in office, but the Egyptions weren't having it right after a revolution.

The army does what it does for many reasons, in parallel. I doubt that they are purely altruistic, but I believe they were sincere in enforcing the will of the people. They only removed Morsi after millions of people had protested against the president for weeks, with more and more people coming out every day. A true democracy should have some way to kick someone out of office if he or she completely disregards their mandate. This obviously isn't it, but it's what many of the people wanted, and Morsi wasn't about to hold a referendum to see.

Of course, the current situation is not good. Morsi supporters were glad that he was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt was already a silently divided nation before this came into the open. The conservative religious factions would like to gradually move Egypt towards Sharia law and Islamic theocracy. Others, especially among the youth, would like Egypt to embrace more aspects of Western culture.

Egypt is one of the more modern Islamic nations. The country is relatively open to the West and there is a great deal of tourism in the country that exposes them to Western culture. They are also very active online with relatively little censorship. I believe that the majority of Egyptians want to see the nation continue in this direction. This is good for the rest of the Western world as well. Egypt's culture has considerable influence on the rest of the Arabic world due to their prominent media industries. It is one of the reasons that people who wish to study Arabic are told to learn Egyptian Arabic. It is the most widely understood modern Arabic dialect. As such, if Egypt breaks away from the influence of religious fundamentalism then it's a win for everyone except the fundies.

So, what can they do at this point? If most people were upset with Morsi for abandoning his mandate and acting as an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, then he should clearly not be in power. How then do you appease those who want him re-instated? They have been protesting and creating problems for over 5 or 6 weeks now, in the middle of the capital. There is no perfect solution. Unfortunately, the army has turned to force and this will mar everything else that they have done, but I still believe that supporting the will of the people was one of their main reasons for entering the fray, and there are not many options on the table when you are dealing with violent mobs with armed members.

At this point only time will tell where Egypt goes next, but with Morsi at the helm they were not on their way to true democracy. Ultimately, when you have such large opposing factions, true democracy may be impossible.

Close to home

[ThatsNotPudding]

The non-Muslims are divided into many smaller groups so can't form a cohesive opposition to the Muslim majority. The Muslims are well organized and it's easy for their imams to tell everyone to vote for the same guy. What do you do when the majority want to take away your freedoms?

So not much different than Baptist ministers in the south-eastern US.

No matter where you go, religion is terrible.

Re:Maybe overturning an election

[Culture20]

Even when the democratically elected official is planning to set himself up as dictator? Their choices were "Confirmed guy trying to be dictator and 0.00001% chance of getting a real election again" They went with the lottery ticket choice (which many people would).

Re:Maybe overturning an election

[shutdown -p now]

Even when the bad guy wins, it is better to respect the results of a democratic election.

This is only true when the elected bad guy himself respects the democratic institutions and free elections, which was not true [wikipedia.org] in case of Muslim Brotherhood in power.

Re:Not a Coup?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Ask John Kerry!

Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry visted Pakistan. In an interview [state.gov] with Geo TV he remarked on Egypt:

SECRETARY KERRY: [...] The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people, all of whom were afraid of a descendance into chaos, into violence. And the military did not take over, to the best of our judgment so â" so far. To run the country, thereâ(TM)s a civilian government. In effect, they were restoring democracy. And the fact is --

QUESTION: By killing people on the roads?

SECRETARY KERRY: Oh, no. Thatâ(TM)s not restoring democracy, and weâ(TM)re very, very concerned about, very concerned about that. And Iâ(TM)ve had direct conversations with President Mansour, with Vice President ElBaradei, with General al-Sisi, as have other members of our government. And Iâ(TM)ve talked to the Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, so Iâ(TM)ve been in touch with all of the players there. And we have made it clear that that is absolutely unacceptable, it cannot happen.

Now, as you know, these situations can be very confusing and very difficult. Weâ(TM)re working very hard right now with Lady Catherine Ashton, with various officials, with other foreign ministers of other countries, in order to try to see if we can resolve this peacefully. But the story of Egypt is not finished yet, so we have to see how it unfolds in the next days.