What lies ahead for Egypt‘s future? Crowds of thousands of protestors took to the streets Sunday as they shouted out against their Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. This marks the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. Will these protests mean violence ahead for Egypt?
According to the LA Times, a new youth movement called Rebel has formed and collected more than 22 million signatures on petitions calling for Morsi to step aside. Despite the citizen’s denouncement against their leader, the president and his Muslim Brotherhood party have refused to move. The military has now dispatched troops around government buildings and the Suez Canal.
Egypt appears to be on the brink of a revolution, which could cause a widespread of violence in the streets and challenge Morsi and his military’s control over the government. Thus far, it has been reported that today’s protests seem to be less violent than in the recent past. Reuters states that the security chief for Cairo said his forces had rounded up 140 “known troublemakers”, some of whom had been found carrying weapons.
“Every party has to denounce violence,” Obama said during his visit to Africa. “We’d like to see the opposition and President Morsi engage in a more constructive conversation about how they move their country forward because nobody is benefiting from the current stalemate.”
So far, Morsi has dismissed calls for his removal – telling the Guardian that this would make a mockery of constitutional processes.
