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Morsi Supporters Urged to Abandon Sit-ins

by VOA News August 03, 2013

Egypt's interior ministry has urged supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi to abandon their sit-ins, saying they are being brainwashed by protest organizers.

In a nationally televised address on Saturday, a ministry spokesman said protest organizers were denying demonstrators access to the news and that some of those organizers have been involved in murders, torture and abductions.

The spokesman called on Morsi supporters to rejoin the country's political process.

However, supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement have vowed to continue fighting for his reinstatement. They have resisted calls to participate in the interim government.

Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy told reporters, on Saturday, that there was an open invitation for all political groups to take part in implementing Egypt's new road map, if the groups renounced violence.

'We cannot truly achieve reconciliation, no matter how hard we try, if there is a continuation of incitement of violence or a continuation of violence out on the street, and that will obviously lead to a reaction,' he said.

Nearly 200 people, mostly Morsi supporters, have been killed since the military toppled him on July 3.

The interim government has been threatening to break up two main protest camps in the Cairo area, where thousands of Morsi supporters have continued to gather, a month after his ouster.

Witnesses say supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood movement have set up sandbags and brick walls to keep authorities from dismantling the camps.

In an interview on VOA's Press Conference USA, William Lawrence, the former head of the International Crisis Group's North Africa Project, said the Muslim Brotherhood has continued to receive broad support because it was viewed as credible.

"The Brothers are seen as less corrupt and less corruptible. And, the idea is that you are going to get good governance from the Brothers because in their social and as independents, political actors, they were less corrupt and so they had a certain popular legitimacy, moral legitimacy," said Lawrence.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts are underway to try to resolve Egypt's political crisis.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is in Egypt for talks with officials in the interim government and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.