Mazhar Sahin (Photo: Aharm file)
Egypt’s revolutionary Sheikh Mazhr Shahin urges during the Islamic traditional Friday sermon not to answer calls for protests against President Mohamed Morsi. Friday morning has seen the start of the first protests against Muslim Brotherhood rule, which put Morsi in office.
The Imam, respected for preaching to protesters every Friday during the thick of the revolution and demonstrations in Tahrir Square, dubbed Friday's anti-Brotherhood demonstrations "anti-revolution" acts.
He also belittles Egypt’s former minister of parliament Mohamed Abu Hamed statements that protests are aiming to topple Morsi and replace him with a presidential civil council, where Morsi and the new minister of defence Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi may be invited to join. Mazhr Shahin retorted mockingly that these ideas might not work in Egypt after a revolution took root and Egyptians inaugurated Morsi via the voting booths.
Shahin asked the congregation at Omar Makram Mosque in Tahrir Square to swear to protect churches, mosques and any public facilities. No two Egyptians will fight each other this Friday, he asserts.
Further criticism of anti-Brotherhood protests
One of the principal organisers of Friday's protests, Abu-Hamed, met with Lebanese Forces party leader Samir Geagea earlier this year, praising him as an "inspiration."
Geagea has long been accused of orchestrating the massacre, together with Israel, of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in Lebanon's Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in 1982. Geagea was also found guilty of assassinating several Lebanese political figures during the country's long civil war.
With this black mark, Abu-Hamed also has had to deny that they plan to get violent during Friday's demonstrations.
The event's purpose, he asserts, is to reject the "Brotherhoodisation" of state institutions and to press for the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, to reveal the sources of their funding to the public.
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