Egypt has kicked out it’s president. The North African country’s army ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi Wednesday (July 3).
Egyptian Military Chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced via a televised statement that the constitution which put Morsi into office, is on hold and that the leader will be replaced with a temporary government.
From the New York Times:
Egypt’s military on Wednesday ousted Mohamed Morsi, the nation’s first freely elected president, suspending the Constitution, installing an interim government and insisting it was responding to the millions of Egyptians who had opposed the Islamist agenda of Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood.
The military intervention, which Mr. Morsi rejected, marked a tumultuous new phase in the politics of modern Egypt, where Mr. Morsi’s autocratic predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, was overthrown in a 2011 revolution.
The intervention raised questions about whether that revolution would fulfill its promise to build a new democracy at the heart of the Arab world. The defiance of Mr. Morsi and his Brotherhood allies also raised the specter of the bloody years of the 1990s, when fringe Islamist groups used violence in an effort to overthrow the military government.
Opposers of the now ex-presidnet’s regime have been protesting for months, and filled Tahrir Square in Cairo, cheering in response to the new development.. Morsi also rejected the military decision that he be forced out, tweeting that the actions “represent a full coup categorically rejected by all the free men of our nation.”
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Photo: Al Jazeera
