Egypt MPs to convene in Tahrir Square if parliament's doors remain shut
Egypt MPs to convene in Tahrir Square if parliament's doors remain shut (Photo: Reuters)
Members of Egypt’s dissolved Islamist-led parliament on Monday threatened to convene in Cairo’s Tahrir Square if they were barred from entering the parliament building.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Salafist Nour Party, along with several independent MPs, have vowed to hold a sit-in in the flashpoint square to express their rejection of the “counter-revolution,” which, they say, “has been exposed by recent moves by Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).”
On Thursday, Egypt’s High Constitutional Court declared the Parliamentary Elections Law – which governed last year’s parliamentary poll – unconstitutional. The court also ruled the Political Disenfranchisement Law – which, if applied could have led to the disqualification of Ahmed Shafiq from Egypt’s just-concluded presidential race – to be similarly unconstitutional.
Only one day earlier, the Ministry of Justice issued a controversial decree allowing Egypt’s military-intelligence and military-police apparatuses to arrest civilians for non-military crimes.
Members of Egypt’s Islamist-led parliament, almost half of the seats of which were held by the Brotherhood’s FJP, promised to end their sit-in once the SCAF hands over executive authority to Egypt’s newly-elected president (who, according to preliminary results of the this weekend’s presidential runoff, appears to be the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi).
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