Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 
Military Coup in Egypt:

Sisi Appoints New President, Morsi Insists on Being the Only Legitimate President

General Sisi announces ousting of President Morsi, July 3, 2013	President Morsi refuses the military coup, insisting on being the only legitimate President, July 3, 2013

General Sisi announces ousting of President Morsi, July 3, 2013	President Morsi refuses the army ultimatum, insisting on being the only legitimate President, July 2, 2013

By Hassan El-Najjar

Al-Jazeerah, July 3, 2013

The Egyptian armed forces, led by General Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, staged a military coup today, appointing the Chairman of the Constitutional Court as a new president, instead of President Muhammed Morsi.

President Morsi refused the military coup and confirmed that he is still the Constitutional and legitimate President of Egypt.

In a Youtube Video, he asked all citizens, civilians and military alike, not to accept the military coup and its consequences. He also urged citizens not to fall to the trap of the cycle of violence between opposing factions.

All TV channels which opposed the military coup have been shut down.



President Morsi refuses the military coup, July 3, 2013

Egyptian army ousts Morsi, suspends constitution

Less than a year after he took power as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Muhammed Morsi was ousted Wednesday night when army chief General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi announced that the constitution has been temporarily suspended.

By FRANCE 24 (text), July 3, 2013

  
• The Egyptian army has ousted President Muhammed Morsi and temporarily suspended the constitution.

• In a televised address to the nation Wednesday night, Egypt’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced the formation of a technocratic interim government.

• The head of the constitutional court, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim head of state.

• Early elections have been promised under the terms of a transition roadmap.

• Opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei has said the new roadmap meets the people’s demand for early elections.

• Egypt’s top Muslim and Christian clerics, Ahmed al-Tayeb, Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, and Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros have backed an army-sponsored roadmap.

• Morsi has urged his supporters to 'peacefully resist the coup'.

• In a pre-recorded speech posted on YouTube, Morsi declared, “I am Egypt’s elected president”.

• Shortly after the army announcement, massive celebrations broke out on Cairo’s Tahrir Square as demonstrators cheered, lit fireworks and threw confetti amid chants of, "The people and the army are one".

• The Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Egypt 25’ television channel has been taken off air and its managers arrested, according to the state news agency.

• Follow the day’s events as they unfolded by scrolling through the FRANCE 24 live blog below.

Egypt's Morsi vows not to resign amid fresh violence

 AFP, July 2, 2013

Egyptian President Muhammed Morsi vowed not to resign in a TV address late Tuesday and rejected an army ultimatum giving him until 3pm GMT Wednesday to cede to protester demands as an attack on a pro-Morsi rally in Cairo left at least 16 dead.

By FRANCE 24 (text)  

Egyptian President Muhammed Morsi vowed not to leave office despite days of protest in which hundreds of thousands have called for his ouster in a televised address in which he reiterated his rejection of an army ultimatum giving him until 3pm (GMT) Wednesday to cede to protesters' demands.

Morsi told Egyptians that he had been given a legitimate mandate by the people that he was willing to defend with his life and urged them to reject any challenge to the legal order.

The only alternative to respecting the constitutional legitimacy of the presidential office was more bloodshed in the streets, he warned.

The president also conceded that mistakes had been made during his first year in office but said many of the persistent challenges had been problems created by the old regime.

Just hours after the speech, at least 16 people were killed and at least 200 others were wounded after gunmen opened fire on a gathering of Morsi's Islamist supporters near Cairo University.

"Police attacked the protesters in their uniforms, using state-issued machine guns and ammunition," said Gehad el-Haddad, spokesman for the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.
Following Morsi’s midnight address, the Facebook page of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, headed by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, carried a response saying that it, too, would fight to the death to protect Egypt from “terrorists, radicals or fools”.
Wednesday deadline.

The army ultimatum, issued on Monday, gave Morsi 48 hours to respond to the demands of thousands of protesters or face a military intervention.

The military statement called on Egypt’s politicians to “meet the demands of the people” or the army would be forced to “announce a road map for the future and the steps for overseeing its implementation”.

Military sources told Reuters that the army plans to suspend the constitution and set up an interim council to rule pending new elections once the deadline expires. Other military sources denied this, saying the next step would be to gather Egypt's political, social and economic leaders for talks on a road map for the future.

Egypt's central bank told banks to close their branches early as the deadline loomed.
The Wednesday editions of most Egyptian news dailies were already predicting Morsi's departure, with the leading state-owned “al-Ahram” announcing, "Today: Ouster or Resignation” on its front page and the independent daily “al-Watan” simply stating: “The End”.

The army's ultimatum came a day after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians across the country took to the streets urging Morsi’s resignation as he marked one year in office on Sunday.

In Cairo and Nile Delta cities as well as those on the Mediterranean coast, the protests exceeded even the largest demonstrations of the 18-day uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.

"It is the biggest protest in Egypt's history," a military source told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that "millions" of people were involved in demonstrations across the country.

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Egypt's Sisi: From 'Morsi's man' to people's army chief

When Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appointed Abdel Fattah al Sisi the new army chief and defence minister last year, there were rumours of Sisi's alleged Muslim Brotherhood links. Now Morsi's appointed army chief has taken on the president.

By Leela JACINTO (text), France 24, July 2, 2013

Barely a year after he was named Egypt’s army chief by President Mohammed Morsi, Gen. Abdel Fattah al Sisi issued an ultimatum to the man who appointed him – as well as other Egyptian politicians – on Monday night.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi called on the army on Tuesday to withdraw the ultimatum for him to share power with his opponents. "President Mohammed Morsi asserts his grasp on constitutional legitimacy and...calls on the armed forces to withdraw their warning and refuses to be dictated to internally or externally," said a post on the Egyptian president's official Twitter feed.

As the sturdy, square-jawed military man warned Egypt’s politicians that they had 48 hours to clear up the current crisis or face the consequences, his TV appearance sparked jubilant scenes in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Protesters cheered, motorists honked their horns, and as army helicopters hovered over the square dropping Egyptian flags in a startling display of populism, protesters roared, “Come down Sisi, Morsi is not my president”.

From a man who was once reviled for attempting to justify the army’s invasive “virginity tests” on female detainees to a hero of the crowds on Tahrir Square, Sisi has shot sky high in the opposition’s popularity ratings.

‘The Brotherhood’s No. 1 choice’

Born in Cairo on November 19, 1954, Sisi was viewed as the face of a new generation when he was appointed army chief and defence minister in August 2012.

The appointment came shortly after Morsi assumed office and ordered Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the 76-year-old head of SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) into retirement.

But Sisi’s appointment by Egypt’s first non-military, Islamist president also sparked reports that the new army chief had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The reports of Islamist links were denied by Muslim Brotherhood officials. But the rumours persisted.

In an interview with the US news site, The Daily Beast, Robert Springborg, an Egyptian military expert at the US Naval Postgraduate School, described Sisi as the Brotherhood’s point-man for months before he was named defence minister last year. “He was their go-to guy,” said Springborg. “They trusted him and they were aware of his political leanings, which were Islamist. Does that mean he was a Brotherhood loyalist? I doubt it. But he had his connections, and he was clearly the Brotherhood’s No. 1 choice.”

A year in Pennsylvania

The 59-year-old Egyptian defence minister also has close links to the US military, an asset in a military that’s heavily funded by the Pentagon.

A graduate of the Egyptian military academy, Sisi studied for a year at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania, where one of his advisors described the future Egyptian army chief as warm, introverted and “clearly very devout”.

EGYPT'S POLITICAL CRISIS

In an interview with the Daily Star, Steve Gerras, a retired US colonel who was Sisi's professor in 2006, noted that, "For many Americans at the time, Islam didn't have a great reputation. For him [Sisi] it was important that we knew about the good things in his religion."

For his part, Springborg noted that Sisi’s academic papers at the US Army War College, were almost like Islamist tracts.

But many Egyptian experts maintain that Sisi would not have been able to rise up the military ranks under ousted Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak if he had suspected Brotherhood links. In an institution notorious for its crackdowns on suspected Islamists – particularly in the Mubarak era – Sisi’s February 2011 appointment as military intelligence chief would have raised alarm bells in Egypt’s military ranks, they note.

Certainly over the past few days, Sisi’s popularity has soared among secular, liberal Egyptians. As the Egyptian Al-Shorouk put it, "Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has managed to become popular with revolutionaries [anti-Morsi protesters] as well as the supporters of the old regime, who view him as a bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood”.

On-the-job lessons in women’s rights

Following Sisi’s Monday ultimatum, many anti-Morsi demonstrators have voiced their willingness to let the Egyptian military hold the reigns of power until the country has a new constitution and new elections are held.

SPECIAL PROGRAMME

But the Egyptian army appears to have little appetite for a political role, which was underlined on Monday night, when the military issued a second declaration denying that the earlier statement by Sisi amounted to a military coup. The purpose of the ultimatum, the second statement clarified, was merely to push the country’s politicians to reach a consensus.

There’s little doubt that the military’s dismal political record in the period spanning Mubarak’s ouster and Morsi’s swearing-in ceremony has taught Sisi some invaluable lessons on handling civil society groups.

In April 2012, during a nationwide uproar over the military’s forced virginity tests on female detainees, the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper quoted Sisi as saying, "the virginity-test procedure was done to protect the girls from rape as well to protect the soldiers and officers from rape accusations".

The subsequent uproar forced SCAF to distance itself from the comments. Months later, during a meeting with Amnesty International, Sisi maintained that the army would no longer carry out the controversial tests. He also stressed the importance of ensuring social justice for all Egyptians.

It’s not clear if all Egyptians are reassured by his promises. In a deeply divided country, supporters of Morsi and the Brotherhood are unlikely to accept the military's “roadmap for the future” if the country's politicians fail to hammer out a political compromise.

And for the corps of army officials under him, Sisi has to prove that although he may have been appointed by the unpopular Islamist president, he’s not really Morsi’s man after all.

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يؤكد الدكتور محمد مرسي رئيس جمهورية مصر العربية أن الإجراءات التي أعلنتها القيادة العامة للقوات المسلحة تمثل انقلابًا عسكريًا مكتمل الأركان وهو مرفوض جملةً وتفصيلاً من كل أحرار الوطن الذي ناضلوا لكي تتحول مصر إلى مجتمع مدني ديموقراطي, كما يشدد الرئيس بصفته رئيسًا للجمهورية والقائد الأعلى للقوات المسلحة على جميع المواطنين مدنيين وعسكريين: قادة وجنودًا الالتزام بالدستور والقانون وعدم الاستجابة لهذا الانقلاب الذي يعيد مصر إلى الوراء والحفاظ على سلمية الأداء وتجنب التورط في دماء أبناء الوطن وعلى الجميع تحمل مسئولياتهم أمام الله ثم أمام الشعب والتاريخ. {والله غالب على أمره و لكن أكثر الناس لا يعلمون}* فور إعلان بيان الانقلاب العسكري، تم وقف بث كل القنوات التي تنقل الفعاليات المعارضة للانقلاب والمؤيدة للدستور وللدكتور مرسي حتى لا يسمع الشعب سوى صوت واحد فقط. هذه بداية عهد الحريات والبقية تأتي. يسقط يسقط حكم العسكر.

http://www.ikhwanonline.com/

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مصر تقرر تعطيل العمل بالدستور واختيار رئيس المحكمة الدستورية ادارة شؤون البلاد

  تمرد

واختارت مصر  تعطيل العمل بالدستور واختيار رئيس المحكمة الدستورية ادارة شؤون البلاد

واعلن عن ذلك الفريق أول عبالفتاح السيسي وزير الدفاع

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خريطة "تمرد" تفتح الطريق لمستقبل جديد لمصر

  مني سليم وحسام الهندي

ليعلم الجميع ان الامل في الشباب وحدهم مصاحبين بخبرة الشيوخ ..فنحن شباب مصر واعضاء حملة تمرد قد أعلنا منذ اللحظة الأولي ان طرحنا لانتخابات رئاسية مبكرة هو الحل الوحيد للخروج من الأزمة . كما طالبنا بنقل السلطة لرئيس المحكمة الدستورية كرئيس مؤقت وتشكيل حكومة انقاذ وطني من كفاءات وتشكيل لجنه لتعديل الدستور وهو ما اتفقت عليه جميع الفصائل والمؤسسات الدينية والرسمية المصرية واعلنت عنه في مؤتمر صحفي والان وقد شاهد الجميع ان طرحنا كشباب لم يتجاوز اكبرنا ال45 عاما يسير بمصر والمصريين الي خارطة جديدة وطريق المستقبل رحم الله شهدائنا شهداء مصر منذ فجر التاريخ الي يوم سقوط عمرو عبدالحميد شهيد حملة تمرد و نؤكد حزننا على أي دماء سقطت أو اريقت من الجانبين والتي يتحملها جميعا رئيسا غير مسؤول في حين لم يتحمل المسؤولية في هذه الثورة غير الشباب المصري ونحي الجيش المصري الذي أكد انه لن يتدخل في العملية السياسية

والتحية والتقدير للشعب المصري العظيم الذي تظاهر وحمي موجة 30 يونيو التي جاءت لتستكمل مطالب ثورة 25 يناير العظيمة وتطالب الحملة جميع المصريين بالتزام السلمية فالدم المصري كله حرام وكلنا مصريين عاش الشهداء احياء في السماء ملهمين لمن في الأرض

http://tamarud.org/index.php/مصر-تتمرد/item/397-خريطة-تمرد-تفتح-الطريق-لمستقبل-جديد-لمصر

http://tamarud.org/index.php/أخبارنا/item/396-مصر-تقرر-تعطيل-العمل-بالدستور-واختيار-رئيس-المحكمة-الدستورية-ادارة-شؤون-البلاد