Anti-Coup Alliance | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Ehab Sheiha [1] |
| Founded | 27 June 2013 [2] |
| Banned | September 2014 [3] |
| Ideology | Islamism [2] |
| ||
|---|---|---|
Post-coup unrest in Egypt (2013–2014) Supporters Opponents Family
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The Anti-Coup Alliance [4] (also known as the National Alliance Supporting Legitimacy) [5] is a coalition in Egypt formed to reverse the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. [6] The coalition is made up of approximately 40 Islamist parties and groups. [7]
The coalition has called upon the opposition to break ties with figures they call "corrupt" from the Mubarak regime. [7] Notably, the political wing of the group (the Building and Development Party) and the Wasat Party did not take part in protests held by pro-Morsi forces during the week of 18 October 2013. [8] The alliance offered a new reconciliation initiative that does not include the reinstatement of Morsi on 26 October 2013; al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Homeland Party are not calling for the reinstatement of Morsi, while the Virtue Party, Authenticity Party and the Muslim Brotherhood are still demanding that Morsi be reinstated as president. [9] The group has reached out to what it called "fellow revolutionaries" to cooperate with them against the protest law in Egypt in order to jointly organize protests; Kefaya objected to the call for cooperation. [10]
Members of the Building and Development Party, the political arm of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, wanted to meet with Yasser Borhamy, the deputy head of the Salafist Call as well as Emad Abdel Ghaffour, who is the head of the Homeland Party. [11] Borhamy reportedly could not meet with the members, while Ghaffour asked them to stop demonstrations before talks could begin and rebuffed their demands for the reinstatement of Morsi and the bringing back of the Shura Council that was dissolved. [11] Borhami denied being asked to serve as a mediator, though he stated that he would act as a mediator if there were no preconditions. [11] The alliance has said it will boycott the 2014 constitutional referendum. [12]
Various groups and parties within the alliance including al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the Building and Development Party, the Islamic Party, the Freedom and Justice Party and the Virtue Party have criticized the Nour Party for its support of the draft constitution. [13] The Islamic Party has not participated in meetings with the group because of what Mohamed Abu Samra (the secretary-general of the party) called the "brotherhood's radical thought". [14] The Salafist Front issued a statement on 30 April 2014 that called on the alliance to temporarily stop its actions in order to avoid more violence; [14] the alliance did not suspend its activities in response. [15] Egyptian Prime minister Ibrahim Mahlab issued a decree on 16 October 2014 banning the alliance. [16] Another decree was issued on 30 October 2014 which dissolved the alliance. [17] A court postponed the appeal of the dissolution of the alliance until 13 November 2014. [18]
Parties and organizations in the coalition include:
The Wasat Party withdrew from the alliance on 28 August 2014. [25] The Homeland Party withdrew from the alliance on 17 September 2014, though the reason for its leaving was to reorganize itself. [26] The Authenticity Party was considering leaving the alliance because it has not achieved its goals. [27] The Salafist Front had withdrawn from the alliance on 30 November 2014. [28] The Independence Party announced on 4 December 2014 that it had withdrawn. [28] The Arab Unification Party and the Islamic Party have withdrawn from the Anti-Coup Alliance. [29] al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is considering withdrawing from the alliance. [30] Osama Hafez, the leader of the groups shura council, has called on the organization to withdraw from the alliance. [31]
A court verdict that could have banned the alliance was not given on 21 May 2014 because the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters ruled that it lacked jurisdiction. [32] An appeal to dissolve the coalition was thrown out on 22 September 2014 partly because it did not indicate what parties are part of the alliance and did not indicate the coalitions alleged connections to "terrorist activities". [33] Another verdict in September 2014 banned the alliance. [16]
Al-Jamāʻah al-islāmīyah, is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union. El Gama'a El Islamiyya was removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States in May 2022. The group was dedicated to the overthrow of the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state; the group has committed to peaceful means following the coup that toppled Mohamed Morsi.
Liberalism in Egypt or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.
The al‑Nour Party(Arabic: حزب النور, romanized: Ḥizb an-Nūr), or "Party of The Light", was one of the political parties created in Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. It has an ultra-conservative, Islamist ideology, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law. It has been described as the political arm of the Salafi Call Society, and "by far the most prominent" of the several new Salafi parties in Egypt, which it has surpassed by virtue of its "long organizational and administrative experience" and "charismatic leaders". Its political aim is to establish a theocratic state on the lines of Wahhabism like in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was found to be the main financer of the party according to the public German television news service ARD.
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-Ayyat was an Egyptian politician, engineer, and professor who served as the fifth president of Egypt, from 2012 to 2013, when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him from office in a coup d'état after protests in June. An Islamist affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, Morsi led the Freedom and Justice Party from 2011 to 2012.
The Building and Development Party is an Islamist political party in Egypt.
The Islamist Bloc, formally the Alliance for Egypt was an electoral alliance of Egyptian political parties, formed for the 2011–12 Egyptian parliamentary election. It consisted of two Salafist parties, Al-Nour and Authenticity Party, as well as the Building and Development Party, which is the political wing of the Islamic Group. The alliance was publicly announced on 3 November 2011.
The Authenticity Party is one of the political parties created in Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. It has an ultra-conservative Islamist Salafist ideology, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law. The party was formed by the former head of the Virtue Party, General Adel Abdel Maksoud; he left the Virtue Party after allegedly discovering a plot which changed the moderate principles of the party. The party is considering leaving the Anti-Coup Alliance.
The Islamic Party is an Islamist political party in Egypt. The name of the party was changed in approximately December 2012. The main leaders of the group are Mohamed Abu Samra and Kamal Habib. The party is backed by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. Most of the founders of the party are former members of the organization. Many members of the party have court rulings that bar them from running for elected office.
The National Salvation Front is an alliance of Egyptian political parties, formed to defeat Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's 22 November 2012 constitutional declaration. The National Front for Salvation of the Revolution has more than 35 groups involved overall. Observers are concerned that the NSF will not be able to become a coherent political force because the different parties agree on opposing Morsi, but their views on other subjects diverge.
The 2012–2013 Egyptian protests were part of the crisis in Egypt including the June 2013 protests, the July 2013 coup d'état, and part of the post-coup unrest. They saw varying opposition against three contiguous heads of state; namely, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Muslim Brotherhood, and the de facto ruling Egyptian Armed Forces.
The Homeland Party is an Islamist political party in Egypt, founded in January 2013 following a split within the al-Nour Party. It was formed when Emad Abdel Ghaffour, the former leader of al-Nour, and 150 other party members quit in protest at the part of a dispute between Ghaffour and followers of Yasser Borhamy. The party has stated that Copts will be allowed to join the party and women will be allowed on electoral lists. In June 2013, 130 members of the party resigned in response to differences within the party leadership. The party withdrew from the Anti-Coup Alliance on 17 September 2014, though the reason for its withdrawal was not because of political differences.
Tamarod was an Egyptian grassroots movement that was founded to register opposition to President Mohamed Morsi and force him to call early presidential elections. The goal was to collect 15 million signatures by 30 June 2013, the one-year anniversary of Morsi's inauguration. On 29 June 2013 the movement claimed to have collected more than 22 million signatures (22,134,460). A counter campaign was launched in support of Morsi's presidency which claimed to have collected 11 million signatures. The movement was planning to become a political party following the 2014 Egyptian presidential election.
The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi from power and suspended the Egyptian constitution of 2012. The move came after the military's ultimatum for the government to "resolve its differences" with protesters during widespread national protests. The military arrested Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and declared Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mansour as the interim president of Egypt. The announcement was followed by demonstrations and clashes between supporters and opponents of the move throughout Egypt.
The 30 June revolution occurred in Egypt on 30 June 2013, marking the one-year anniversary of Mohamed Morsi's inauguration as president. The events ended with the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état after mass protests across Egypt demanding the immediate resignation of the president. The rallies were partly a response to Tamarod, an ostensibly grassroots movement that launched a petition in April 2013, calling for Morsi and his government to step down. Tamarod claimed to have collected more than 22 million signatures for their petition by June 30, although this figure was not verified by independent sources. A counter-campaign in support of Morsi's presidency, named Tagarod, claimed to have collected 26 million signatures by the same date, but this figure was also unverified and not mentioned in media nearly as much as Tamarod's, with no reliable sources repeating it. The movements in opposition to Morsi culminated in the June 30 protests that occurred across the country. According to the Egyptian military, which calculated the number of protesters via helicopter scans of demonstration perimeters across the country, the June 30 protests had 32 million protesters, making them "the biggest protests in Egypt's history." However, independent observers raised concerns that the Egyptian government exaggerated the actual number of anti-Morsi protestors, with some research determining that only around one to two million people protested across the country against Morsi.
Protests against the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état erupted in July 2013. Immediately following the removal of President Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian Armed Forces on 3 July 2013 amid demonstrations against Morsi's rule, many protesters amassed near the Rabia Al-Adawiya Mosque to call for Morsi's return to power and condemn the military, while others demonstrated in support of the military and interim government. Deadly clashes such as Rabaa massacre continued for several days, with three particularly bloody incidents being described by officials as "massacres" perpetrated by security forces. During the month of Ramadan, prime minister Hazem al-Beblawy threatened to disperse the ongoing Pro-Morsi sit-ins in Rabaa al-Adaweya square and al-Nahda square. The government crackdown of these protests occurred in a violent dispersal on 14 August 2013. In mid-August, the violence directed by the army towards the protesters escalated, with hundreds killed, and the government declaring a month-long nighttime curfew.
The Freedom and Justice Party is an Egyptian Islamist political party. The ex-president of the party, Mohamed Morsi, won the 2012 presidential election, and in the 2011 parliamentary election it won more seats than any other party. It is nominally independent, but has strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the largest political group in Egypt. The party was banned and dissolved in 2014; however, it continues to function underground.
Mohamed Abu Samra is the current secretary-general of the Islamic Party, which is the political arm of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Abu Samra stated in an interview in April 2013 that the Muslim Brotherhood was not successful in applying Sharia and that he supported the changing of the government. However, in an interview with Cairo Al-Akhbar, he called for a revolt if President Mohamed Morsi was deposed. As of September 2013 he was calling for peaceful protests and disavowed the actions of jihadist groups in the Sinai. He called on Egyptian judges to adhere to the law by stopping their strike that occurred in 2012. Abu Samra said that he would be opposed towards returning Israeli Jews of Egyptian descent to Egypt in response to a comment made by Essam el-Erian, a member of the Freedom and Justice Party and an adviser to then president Mohamed Morsi; he also stated that according to Sharia law, Jews deserve to be fought and killed by Muslims.
The Salafist Front is an Egyptian Salafi Islamist organization that was founded after the 2011 Egyptian revolution after breaking away from the Salafist Call. It has been called "one of the largest Salafist associations in the Middle East". The organization was part of the Anti-Coup Alliance, though it announced on 4 December 2014 that it had withdrawn from the alliance. It has also been described as one of the most revolutionary Islamist movements in Egypt.
The Moderate Front is an alliance composed of former jihadis, ex-members of the Muslim Brotherhood and ex-al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya members. The leader of the alliance is Sabra al-Qasemy al-Wasateyya, who was a former member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The alliance was founded after the 30 June ouster of Mohamed Morsi and subsequent attacks on civilians. The coalition has supported Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for president in the Egyptian 2014 presidential election. The Muslim Brotherhood has been criticized by the group for its calling for protests on the anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes; the members of the alliance want the Brotherhood to turn away from violence. One of the members of the organization, Amr Emara, is also the coordinator of the Dissident Brotherhood Youth Alliance. The leader of the Democratic Jihad Party is currently a member of the front.
