Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The unity of the Egyptian revolution is continuing to break up, and this coming Friday (29 July) could prove to be a key test of strength between the Islamists and the secularists, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) continuing to look on.

Since the fall of the Mubarak regime, protesters have continued to gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demonstrate against the perceived lack of speed in bringing former Mubarak regime officials to book, ending corruption, and promoting social justice.  This Friday, however, will see a protest by Islamists against the secular liberals that dominated the original revolution.

The division between the secular and the Islamist branches of the revolution became public in March at the time of the referendum over the new constitution.  The secularists wanted a new constitution agreed before the holding of elections; the Islamic trend wanted elections first on the grounds that the Islamists, as the most organized of the opposition trends, would do well in the elections and could thus have a dominating influence over the drafting of the new constitution.

In the March referendum, those supporting ‘elections-first’ won resoundingly with around 77% of the vote, but the secular liberals have refused to accept this as the last word.  The SCAF has so far supported the ‘elections-first’ camp, but the secular-liberals have struck back with a suggestion that there should be a supra-constitutional article mandating the army to safeguard the civil (ie not Islamic) character of the state.

The SCAF has now said that it will support a ‘declaration of basic rules’ to be adopted before the drafting of the new constitution, and it is against this proposal that the Islamists will be protesting this Friday.  They have called a massive rally for 29 July in Tahrir Square which will be supported by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Jamaah Islamiyah, and the Salafists.

But although the ostensible purpose of the 29 July rally is to oppose the proposal for a ‘declaration of basic rules’, there have also been calls by some MB activists to use the occasion to oust a group of secularists who are continuing to stage a sit-in in Tahrir Square until all the demands of the revolution are met.

One senior member of Jamaah Islamiyah has reportedly said that the 29 July rally should be used to “purge the square of atheists and infidels”, while last Friday (22 July) Sheikh Yusuf Darwish, the imam and preacher of al-Fateh Mosque, declared: “Let all those who do not want Egypt to be an Islamic state leave it.”

Last Saturday (24 July) there were clashes in Abbasiyyah district between demonstrators protesting against the SCAF and supporters of the SCAF that left over 300 people wounded.  The SCAF, which to an extent has been sitting on the fence, came out with a forceful criticism of the secular-liberal protesters.