Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said its members will protest on Friday, warning of "conspiracies" by the state to use violence against protesters.

The group will continue its usual Friday protests under the slogan of the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, the Brotherhood said in a statement on the website of its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.

"God is great, we are all one hand," the outlawed group said.

An Islamist group known as the Salafist Front called for an "uprising of the Muslim youth" and a day of "Islamic identity" on 28 November, encouraging its supporters to raise the Quran in demonstrations. The group's demands include the imposition of Islamic sharia law.

Despite criticism by some supporters for endorsing the Salafist Front's sectarian call for protests on Friday, the Brotherhood maintained its support for the "Islamic revolution" demonstrations.

"You've all seen the great response to the calls of preserving [Islamic] identity in the 'uprising of the Muslim youth' protests, which has caused terror and fright for the entire coup's regime," the statement read.

The Brotherhood, from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails, urged their supporters to maintain peaceful protests, adding that the "army and police have conspiracies to commit massacres against protesters."

The group also urged its supporters to "preserve Egyptian blood, and not give the chance to the criminals of the bloody military coup, and save [Egyptian blood] for defending the country against its enemies."

It advised its members to stay away from locations where police and army personnel are stationed and to raise the Egyptian flag and chant the usual revolutionary slogans.

The Brotherhood, labelled a terrorist group by the Egyptian government in December of last year, has scheduled regular Friday protests since Morsi's ouster on 3 July 2013. However, their numbers have dwindled amid a police crackdown.

Aside from the Salafist Front, the pro-Morsi National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) has supported the Friday protests.

Other Islamist forces, however, said they will not participate, including the Salafist Call and its political wing the Nour Party.

Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, the group that led most of the violent attacks against the government in the 1980s and the 1990s but later rejected violence, has also declined to join the protests.

Other groups opposing the regime but not members of the NASL, like the centrist Strong Egypt Party and the radical April 6 Youth Movement, have also ruled out participation in Friday's demonstrations.


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