Saturday, June 16th, 2012. New York City – On Friday, June 15th, a group of approximately 30 activists had an emergency protest in solidarity with the Egyptian Revolution in front of the Egyptian Consulate on 58 St and 2nd Ave in Manhattan, NYC.
After the rally, Sherry J. Wolf said on Facebook, “Around 30 solidarity activists turned out this evening for our emergency picket. We were spirited and had a bunch of signs, an Egyptian flag and kept up chanting till 6PM, when we held a little wrap-up and took some pics. 3 adults and their small children were out there to “defend” SCAF and the dictatorship, as one comrade so aptly put it: they must have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.”
Today, Saturday, June 16, pro-democracy activists will be holding a press conference and rally in front of the San Francisco Federal Building to oppose the “legal” coup in Egypt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the High Court against the democratically-elected parliament.
San Francisco-based democracy advocates are demanding that Rep. Nancy Pelosi send a clear message President Barak Obama to immediately end all military aid. The Egyptian military receives hundreds of millions of dollars per year in direct U.S. funding and the U.S. government must be held directly responsible for any violence committed against pro-revolutionary activists in Egypt.
Democracy Now reported that, “Days before Egypt’s presidential runoff, the Egyptian Supreme Court has dissolved the newly elected parliament, handing power back to the military. The court also confirmed Hosni Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, can run for president against Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi. Protests have erupted in Egypt, with critics saying the decision is tantamount to a judicial coup.”
“Leading figures including the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and the novelist Alaa al-Aswany, have confirmed they will boycott this weekend’s presidential runoff. ElBaradei told the Guardian that the court’s decision to dissolve parliament had left Egypt in a total mess.
Amnesty has warned that a decision to extend the military’s power to arrest and investigate civilians for a wide range of offences would pave the way for fresh human rights violations. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International, said: “We fear this latest decision signals that instead of ushering in proper reform, the authorities are intent on holding on tight to the emergency powers they enjoyed for so long.” The guardian.co.uk reported.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, claims he will serve the revolution if he is elected in this weekend’s runoff.
A military coup has been in operation since February 2011, claims the high-profile activist Hossam El-Hamalawy in Jadaliyya. He calls on the revolutionary forces to organise, resolve their differences and fight back.
People in Chicago also had a protest. They posted this message on Facebook, “Egypt’s military rulers and the remnants of the old regime of toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak have made a brazen move against the revolution. The assault took the form of a ruling by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court that is simultaneously intended to dissolve the country’s parliament and allow the military’s favored candidate to stay in a presidential runoff election scheduled for this weekend–two steps in the direction of the counter-revolution.
We in Chicago who have been inspired by the struggle of ordinary Egyptians to draw a more just, democratic society into being through protest, strike action, and over a year of ongoing organizing must take a stand to show our solidarity! Their struggle has been helped us find our own courage to fight, from the Wisconsin labor rebellion to the Occupy Movement. And the US government continues to provide crucial financial and military support to Egypt’s rulers as they have used US tanks and tear gas to repress protests.
That’s why all over the United States, we must take action today to show our brothers and sisters in Tahrir Square we stand with them!”
6/15/2012 – Protest in front of the Egyptian Consulate in Manhattan, NYC.
A Judicial Coup in Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood-Controlled Parliament Dissolved, Military Gains Power.
democracynow.org – We go to Cairo for an update from Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous. “These court rulings have really dealt the final fatal blow to a military-managed transitional process that’s been so deformed as to barely make sense anymore,” he says. “Right now Egypt is in a state where there’s no parliament, no constitution or even a clear process for drafting one, and a presidential runoff that will leave Egypt with a ruler who will be a very divisive president.”