Monday, August 5, 2013

Egypt Update

 A group of Western and Arab envoys will visit jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater as they seek to mediate an end to Egypt's crisis, according to Al Jazeera sources.
The envoys from the United States, the European Union, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been meeting allies of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the army-backed administration that replaced him in a bid to defuse the crisis.Shater is deputy leader of the Brotherhood and its main political strategist.
- Al jazeera

Morsi supporters are staging protests in cities across the country, as they do every night: Tonight's rallies are in at least eight governorates, including Alexandria and Aswan
- Al jazeera

Egypt's highest security body has warned that the search for a peaceful end to a standoff over sit-ins by supporters of the ousted president is not open-ended.
The National Defense Council, which is led by the interim president and includes top ministers, met late on Saturday and issued a statement on Sunday.
The statement said that any negotiated end to the sit-ins by Mohamed Morsi supporters would not spare what it called "law-breakers" and others who incite against the state.
The military ousted Morsi in a July 3 coup that followed days of mass protests in which millions of Egyptians called on the Islamist leader to step down.
Morsi's supporters are camped in two Cairo squares demanding his reinstatement.
The US and EU are trying to mediate a peaceful resolution.
- Associated Press
Egypt's general prosecutor has issued an order to hold deposed president Mohamed Morsi's chief of staff, Rifaa Tahtawi, pending investigation of charges related to last December's violent clashes at the presidential palace. Tahtawi's deputy, Ahmed Sheikha, is also being held.
The two men were both detained last month alongside Morsi, but these charges, and the 15-day detentions, are the first formal legal action taken against them.
- Al jazeera
 
Top Muslim Brotherhood officials, including the group's supreme guide Mohamed Badie and leading strategist Khairat al-Shater, will face trial on August 25 for charges of murder and incitement, according to Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram.
They were charged last month in connection with violent clashes outside the Brotherhood's headquarters on June 30, which left at least 12 people dead.
Shater was arrested last month, but several of the defendants, including Badie, remain at large.
 - Al jazeera

Ahead of a planned visit to Cairo, US senator Lindsey Graham urged the new military-backed government to hold elections quickly.
"The Egyptian military must move more aggressively toward turning over control to the civilian population, civilian organisations. The military can't keep running the country. We need democratic elections," he said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" program.
US president Barack Obama has asked Graham and another Republican senator, John McCain, to travel to Egypt and meet with both the leadership and the Muslim Brotherhood. No date has been announced for the visit.
"I want to keep the aid flowing to Egypt but it has to be with the understanding that Egypt is going to march toward democracy, not toward a military dictatorship. And that's the message we're going to send," Graham said, referring to $1.5bn in annual military aid the US provides to Egypt.
- Al jazeera

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