Several revolutionary youth movements have strongly denounced the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) use of youth militias which were deployed Tuesday 31 January in front the People’s Assembly building to secure the safe entry and exit of the MPs, a sweeping majority of which is Islamist.
Several revolutionary youth movements have strongly denounced the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) use of youth militias which were deployed Tuesday 31 January in front the People’s Assembly building to secure the safe entry and exit of the MPs, a sweeping majority of which is Islamist.
The revolutionary youth had been marching from several spots in Cairo, from Tahrir, Maspero, and the high Court of Justice; and converging on the Parliament building to demand that the military should hand over power to a civilian authority. Once at the Parliament building, the revolutionaries found the MB militias waiting for them, forming human shields to ban them from entering the building.
The revolutionary youth attempted to penetrate the human shield by physically pushing through them, but the MB youth—to shouts of Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest)—attacked them with sticks and electric shocks. A MB militia also attacked a student march in the nearby Falaki Street to prevent it from reaching Parliament. The revolutionaries counterattacked with stones.
Once the MPs left the building, the MB youth withdrew.
The Free Front for Peaceful Change described the MB militias as the new central security force, and alleged that the Military Council and the MB were accomplices. The Front warned of any attempt to curtail the rights of demonstration or freedom of expression. A spokesman reminded that the Islamist majority in Parliament was not the end of the road; the poor voter turnout in the Shura Council—the upper house of Egypt’s parliament—elections, he said, was evidence that the people were denying the legitimacy of the military rule.
For their part, the Revolution Youth Coalition strongly condemned the MB’s stance and its use of militias against the people. They described their actions as “trading in religion”, a policy which may cast Egypt into the grips of internal struggles.
The MB militias were, on a smaller scale, stationed around the MB platform in Tahrir Square on Friday 27 January, to defend the platform against any revolutionaries who might not be happy with the MB’s celebratory mood while the others in the square were deploring the unfinished revolution. The MB celebrations were no surprise, however, given that they had just won an overwhelming majority in Parliament.
Back in December 2006, the MB militias made a rare show of force when, in the wake of the expulsion of 20 MB students from al-Azhar University for engaging in banned political activity, they staged a sit-in at on campus during which they conducted military drill complete with black masks and ‘war cries’. For Egyptians, the drill strongly brought to mind the Palestinian Hamas militias—Hamas is the Palestinian faction of the Muslim Brotherhood. The government, however, stepped in and detained 150 of the students, together with the vice-guide of the MB. At the time, the military drill was seen to indicate a not-so-subtle announcement of a comeback of the Muslim Brothers military arm. During the preceding summer months in which Israel was at war with Hizbullah, the them Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef had declared that the Brotherhood had the capacity of sending some 10,000 young fighters to join Hizbullah in its battle against the Hebrew State.