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driven from pro-Morsi protest camp
• CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt faced new uncertainty Thursday, the day after security forces drove out Mohammed Morsi's supporters from two sprawling encampments where they had been camped out for six weeks demanding the Islamist president's reinstatement. The move, which left dozens of protesters dead and saw the arrest of several leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, has left the fundamentalist movement dangerously isolated. It also prompted Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, to resign in protest over the violent crackdown as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.
• WHY NOW?
• The interim administration that took over after Morsi was toppled on July 3 has been warning for days that it planned to crackdown on the tent cities, which clogged intersections on opposite sides of the Egyptian capital. The government accused the protesters of frightening residents in the neighborhoods, sparking violence and disrupting traffic. Military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi, called for mass rallies last month to show support action against the protesters. Millions turned up on July 26 to declare their support. The government later said diplomatic efforts had failed and the decision to clear the sit-ins was "irreversible." Morsi's supporters fortified their positions and even more people flooded the camps after plans for a crackdown on Monday morning were leaked to the media. Police announced they were postponing the decision but did not give a new date.
• WHAT LED TO THIS?
• Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected leader after winning the first post-Hosni Mubarak presidential election with just under 52 percent of the vote. His rise to the helm of power was a sharp reversal for the Muslim Brotherhood, repressed for decades under Mubarak's rule, and it was part of a general rise to power of Islamists following the Arab Spring wave of revolutions that led to the ouster of Mubarak and autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Libya. But Morsi faced a backlash as liberal and secular activists accused him and the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to monopolize power and failing to implement much-needed social and economic re (Continued on page 24)
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