Ibrahim Mahla, at a
press conference in Cairo, said he hoped to form a government within the
next three or four days. Photograph: EPA
A former member of Hosni Mubarak's political party has been appointed as Egypt's new prime minister, a day after the cabinet announced its shock resignation, vowing to crack down on the militant violence that has blighted Egypt since the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Ibrahim
Mahlab spoke after his appointment by Adly Mansour – the army-appointed
president who has been in office since Morsi's removal in July – and
said he hoped to form his government within three or four days.
"We
will work together to restore security and safety to Egypt and crush
terrorism in all corners of the country," he said. "Security and
stability in the entire country and crushing terrorism will pave the way
for investment."
Mahlab, who was housing minister in the previous
administration, will head Egypt's sixth government since the 2011
uprising that toppled the autocratic Mubarak, beginning yet another
chapter in the chaotic post-Mubarak era.
Mahlab once belonged to
Mubarak's National Democratic party, and is the former CEO of Arab
Contractors, one of the region's largest construction firms.
He is
expected to lead an interim government at least until the election of a
new president – likely to be army chief Abdel Fatah al-Sisi – and
perhaps even until the installation of a new parliament.
Egypt's prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, announced the cabinet's decision during a televised statement. Photograph: Reuters
Egypt
is braced for its sixth government since the start of the 2011
uprising, after the prime minister announced the early resignation of
the entire interim cabinet on Monday afternoon.
Hazem al-Beblawy, appointed in the days following the removal of Mohamed Morsi last July,
was meant to head Egypt's government until the election of a new
president, but resigned on Monday after weeks of mounting criticism.
In
a televised speech, Beblawy appeared to respond to the attacks by
asking Egyptians to take more personal responsibility for solving the
country's ingrained economic and social challenges.
"It is time we
all sacrificed for the good of the country. Rather than asking what has
Egypt given us, we should instead be asking what we have done for
Egypt," Beblawy was quoted as saying in state-run media.
He said
his government had "made every effort to get Egypt out of the narrow
tunnel in terms of security, economic pressures and political
confusion".
Criticism of his government had peaked in recent weeks
amid large strikes in industrial cities, and widespread electricity
blackouts. Read More Here
.....
Ex-Mubarak crony named to form new Egyptian government
Nancy Youssef
Stepping down: Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi. Photo: AP
Cairo: The surprise announcement by
Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi that his seven-month-old
government would resign just two months ahead of expected presidential
elections seems destined to clear the way for a new cabinet led by
politicians close to ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The departing cabinet was the fifth government to rule Egypt
in three years. The interim president, Adly Mansour, accepted Mr
Beblawi's resignation and named as his successor the housing minister,
Ibrahim Mahlab, a former member of Mr Mubarak's National Democratic
Party who has business interests in Saudi Arabia and whom Mr Mubarak
appointed to the legislature's upper house, the Shura Council, in 2010.
Under Egyptian law, when the prime minister resigns, the rest
of his cabinet resigns with him. But the announcement appeared to catch
some of the ministers by surprise.
Saudi ties: Ibrahim Mahlab is expected to be named as Mr Beblawi's replacement. Photo: Reuters
A government official told McClatchy that Mr Mahlab would
return most ministers to their former posts in the next days but that
there might be a shift in the cabinet's overall composition. Where Mr
Beblawi's cabinet consisted of those tied to the Mubarak regime as well
as newcomers since the 2011 uprising that removed Mr Mubarak from power,
Mr Mahlab is expected to stack his cabinet with remnants of the old
regime.
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Analysts saw Mr Mahlab's appointment as helping the expected
presidential candidacy of Egypt's de facto ruler, Field Marshal
Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. Field Marshal Sisi was once Egypt's defence
attache in Saudi Arabia, his country's largest financial benefactor.
Rejects charges and urges Egyptians to continue ‘peaceful revolution’
Reuters
Published: 19:21 February 22, 2014
Image Credit: AP
Egypt's ousted President Mohammad Mursi in a soundproof barred glass cage during a court hearing in a February 16 photo. AP
Cairo:
Egypt’s deposed president Mohammad Mursi on Saturday rejected the right
of a court to try him and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders on charges
related to a mass jail break in 2011, security and judicial sources
said.
Mursi and his comrades,
including the Brotherhood’s top leader Mohammad Badie, are charged with
killing and kidnapping policemen, attacking police facilities and
breaking out of jail during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak.
“As
far as I’m concerned, these procedures are void and I don’t accept
them,” Mursi said, describing himself as the president of the republic
and calling on the Egyptian people to continue their “peaceful
revolution,” according to the sources.
Some
of the other roughly 130 defendants, who were held in a different
courtroom cage from Mursi, applauded him and chanted “Down with military
rule”. It is not unusual for high-profile defendants to be locked up in
cages in Egyptian courts.
Mourners
carry the coffin of a man killed during Saturday's clashes between
protesters and security forces in Cairo. Photograph: Ahmed Omar/AP
Standing
in the forecourt of Cairo's Zeinhom mortuary, waiting to pick up the
corpse of his friend, Amr Hussein could scarcely believe he was there.
"I thought we were done with this," said Hussein, 23. "I thought the
revolution would be the start of a new era."
Hussein's classmate,
Mohamed Yehia, was shot dead by police on Saturday, the third
anniversary of the Egyptian uprising – a day that was meant to be a
celebration.
But for many it was instead one of protest
and mourning, with officials confirming on Sunday that 49 people had
been killed in nationwide protests against the regime installed last
July by the army chief Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Fierce clashes raged in
several neighbourhoods across the country, with armoured police vehicles
charging at protesters in downtown Cairo.
Supporters of Egypt's ousted Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, as well as activists opposed to the authoritarianism of both Morsi and Sisi, took part – and 1,079 people were arrested.
"This
is not the Egypt that we are looking for," said Ayman Abdelmeguid, a
spokesman for the 6 April group, the secular youth movement that
organised many of the first protests against Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Violence
of a different kind continued on Sunday in the Sinai peninsular, where
Islamist extremists ambushed and killed three policemen. It continued a
militant surge against security forces that saw four bombs explode in
Cairo on Friday, and an army helicopter allegedly shot down on Saturday. Read More Here
..... The New York Times
Clashes Kill 49 Egyptians on Uprising’s Anniversary
CAIRO
— Thousands of Egyptians celebrated the third anniversary of their
revolt against autocracy on Saturday by holding a rally for the military
leader who ousted the country’s first democratically elected president.
Elsewhere, at least 49 people died in clashes with security forces at
rival antigovernment protests organized by Islamists and left-leaning
activists.
In
at least on-e case, the Islamists and liberals chanted against each
other. But within as little as 15 minutes, riot police officers began
firing tear-gas cannons and shooting guns into the air, swiftly
dispersing the protests and leaving the day to the military leader, Gen.
Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi.
The
violence escalated as the day went on. The Way of the Revolution Front,
a group opposed to the Islamists as well as the military takeover,
urged its supporters to retreat from the streets in the face of what it
called “the excessive force that police are using against whoever tries
to express their opinion.”
By
Sunday morning, health officials said the death toll from clashes with
the police had reached at least 49, most killed in the Cairo area.
Security officials said more than 1,000 were arrested around the
country. By Saturday night, more than 430 had been arrested in greater
Cairo alone.
In
the canal city of Suez, a car bomb at a police camp wounded four
officers, officials said, the latest in a campaign of attacks on
security forces since the military takeover. The violence on Saturday
came a day after four bombings around the capital killed at least six
people and clashes with the police killed another eight. But the
government appeared determined to prevent any of the protests or deaths
from dimming the spectacle of the rally for General Sisi, or the
momentum of his presumed presidential campaign.
The enthusiasm of his supporters, however, also hinted at some of the outsize expectations he might face in office.
Hassan
Shehab, 52, a shopkeeper carrying a poster of a son killed by security
forces during the 2011 uprising, said he believed General Sisi would
“turn Egypt from a third-world country to a first-world country” while
bringing justice for the revolution’s “martyrs.”
“He
will hold the police accountable and put them on trial, as soon as they
get rid of the terrorism of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mr. Shehab said.
The
Brotherhood, an eight-decades-old Islamist organization, sponsored the
most successful party in Egypt’s free elections in 2011 and 2012. Its
candidate, Mohamed Morsi, became president and held that position until
he was ousted by the military in July amid swelling street protests
against him.
The
military has been portraying the Brotherhood as a terrorist threat ever
since. On Friday, government officials quickly blamed it for the day’s
four bombings.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi form silhouettes during a protest against the
military and interior ministry near the El-Thadiya presidential palace
in Cairo September 20, 2013. Egyptian security forces were hunting for
armed supporters of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood on Friday after retaking
control of a town near Cairo in a crackdown on Islamists. (Reuters
Photo)
Cairo. An Egyptian court on Monday banned
the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and ordered its assets seized, in
the latest blow to the Islamist movement of deposed president Mohamed
Morsi.
The court also banned “any institution branching out from
or belonging to the Brotherhood,” the official MENA news agency
reported, possibly restricting the movement’s political arm the Freedom
and Justice Party.
The ruling ratchets up an intensifying crackdown on the Brotherhood since the army’s July 3 overthrow of Morsi.
Last
month, security forces stormed two Cairo protest camps, sparking
clashes in which hundreds of Islamist demonstrators were killed.
The operation drew criticism of the military-installed interim authorities from foreign governments and human rights groups.
A
judicial source told AFP the court ruled that a government committee
should be created to manage the Brotherhood’s seized assets.
The
Cairo court “ruled to ban all activities by the Muslim Brotherhood
organization, the group emanating from it and its non-governmental
organization,” MENA reported.
The ruling may be appealed and overturned by a higher court.
CAIRO
— An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the Muslim Brotherhood to be
banned and its assets confiscated in a dramatic escalation of a
crackdown by the military-backed government against supporters of the
ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
The ruling opens the door
for a wider crackdown on the vast network of the Brotherhood, which
includes social organizations that have been key for building the
group’s grassroots support and helping its election victories. The
verdict banned the group itself — including the official association it
registered under earlier this year — as well as “any institution
branching out of it or ... receiving financial support from it,”
according to the court ruling, made public on Egypt’s state official
news agency MENA.
The judge at the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters
also ordered the “confiscation of all the group’s money, assets, and
buildings” and said that an independent committee should be formed by
the Cabinet to manage the money until final court orders are issued. The
verdict can be appealed.
The Brotherhood was outlawed for most of
its 85 years in existence. But after the 2011 ouster of Hosni Mubarak,
it was allowed to work openly, formed a political party and rose to
power in a string of post-Mubarak elections. In March, it registered as a
recognized non-governmental organization.
In the past three
years, the movement set up headquarters in a multi-story building in
Cairo and opened offices across the country for its Freedom and Justice
Party.
All these buildings are likely to be seized under the court
order, which can also if upheld criminalize membership with the
movement.
“This is totalitarian decision,” leading group member
Ibrahim Moneir said in an interview with Qatari-based Al-Jazeera
Mubashir Misr TV. “You are losers and it (the Brotherhood) will remain
with God’s help, not by the orders by the judiciary of El-Sissi,” he
added, referring to military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi, who led
the overthrow of Morsi on July 3.
After more than two years in jail, Egypt's ousted former president Hosni Mubarak
is under house arrest in a Cairo military hospital, having been flown
by helicopter from prison. His lawyer said this hospital would be the
last step on the 85-year-old's road to being freed.
Emerging on to
the roof of the prison building carried on a trolley stretcher,
casually dressed in white trousers, a shirt and loafers, the former
dictator flashed a smile in the direction of assembled supporters.
Mubarak,
who ruled for 30 years, still faces retrial on charges of complicity in
the killing of protesters during the 25 January revolution. But the
dramatic events of the past week – during which he has been transformed
from a villain of the state to a man about to win his freedom – has
raised doubts over whether the new martial leadership has the will to
pursue the case against him.
The final say on where Mubarak will
go rests with Hazem el-Beblawi, the prime minister in the
military-backed interim government.
Critics fear his release is a
sign that the military is reinventing an old order which has regained
prominence since elected president and former Muslim Brotherhood member
Mohamed Morsi was removed from power on in a military coup backed by
popular will seven weeks ago. In a matter of weeks, Egypt has seen the
return of the old order's state security and police forces to streets.
Stepping down: Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi. Photo: AP
Saudi ties: Ibrahim Mahlab is expected to be named as Mr Beblawi's replacement. Photo: Reuters
