Egypt’s interim-President Adly Mansour called on all Egyptians to hit the streets on Sunday to gather in squares across the nation in celebration of the anniversary of the 6 October war against Israel, and to support the Egyptian army.
Mansour, whose speech was televised by state television on Saturday, said: “Be in every district, street and square of Egypt to celebrate your victory [over Israel in 1973] and support your army.”
The speech came in the wake of statements by the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL), a coalition of Islamist forces supporting deposed president Mohamed Morsi, calling on the former leader’s supporters to gather in Tahrir Square on Sunday to call for his reinstatement.
Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the epicenter of the 2011 revolution, which toppled former-president Hosni Mubarak.
It is not the first time an official call has been made for the Egyptian population to gather. Army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi asked Egyptians to take to the streets on Friday 26 July in support of the armed forces and to give him a popular “mandate to fight terrorism.”
After millions gathered on Egypt’s streets in response to El-Sisi, security personnel forcibly dispersed two huge sit-ins supporting Morsi in Cairo and Giza, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Morsi was toppled on 3 July as part of a roadmap agreed upon by many political forces and the armed forces, as well as Al-Azhar (Egypt’s highest Sunni Muslim authority) and the Coptic Church.
Source : Ahram
