Interview of Ibrahim Hafez, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Cameroon.
Your Excellency reports of bloody confrontations in Egypt are recurrent. What exactly is the problem?
After six long weeks of illegal sit-ins in one of the most important places in the heart of Cairo instigated by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, the police forces in Egypt contacted regular security operations on August 14 in order to disperse the crowds. The police forces undertook this operation as a last resort after many attempts to ask the Muslim Brotherhood and the people in the sit-ins to disperse. Demonstrations and sit-ins are allowed by law in Egypt if they are peaceful and do not infringe upon the security and rights of other citizens. It is no longer a peaceful sit-in because we are already talking about grenade, pistols, rifles, bombs etc. There was a cabinet decision authorising it and a decision by the Prosecutor General and was preceded by several days of solemn undertakings of safe passage for all the participants. The Prosecutor General issued the decision after multiple verified incidents of torture and violence were perpetrated in the encampments, in addition to the existence of arms caches and after thousands of the residents of the areas occupied by the encampments filed legal complaints and launched formal procedures.
The security forces employed the highest self restraint tactics in its operation with a view to minimising to harm persons in the encampments. At the beginning, they did not attack but these armed groups have a pre-taken position. They want to have causalities because as soon as the defense forces approach to encircle, they shoot on them. At this stage (Friday August 16 when the interview was conducted) I can tell you that 45 soldiers and officers from the police forces were killed. And you know that anywhere in the world when the police are attacked, they need to defend themselves. The strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood and this military group is to shoot and force the Egyptian police to have this result. The Egyptian police have reporters and members of human right organisations with them and they have evidence that this was a set-up. Some of the leaders have been saying they are going to burn Cairo and we think this is not acceptable.
But why is the Muslim Brotherhood on one side while the rest of Egypt is on the other?
The Egyptian revolution of June 30, 2013 was to correct the first one of January 25, 2011 that forced Hosni Mubarak to resign. This is for basic freedom, basic rights, independence, social justice and for a civil and democratic State. The ousted President Morsi was elected by the Egyptians but he did not respect the constitution. He did not respect the contract between him and the people which was that he should not be the president of the Muslim Brotherhood, but of all the Egyptians. The Egyptians refused a religious State like Taliban. Egyptians are a liberal and civilised people. Mr Morsi was never independent in taking decisions. All the decisions were taken by the Muslim Brotherhood. It was unbelievable that a president of Egypt would say we support the creation of an Islamic State in the north of Mali. It was an embarrassment for us. Human rights were abused, he was detaining journalists, he tolerated that his allies would encircle the media city in Cairo and threaten the constitutional court. He was going to change 2,500 judges in Egypt to bring judges affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptians refused that. Egyptians elected Mr Morsi but over 33 million people rejected him because he did not rule democratically and refused early elections. Egyptians asked for national reconciliation, early elections and power sharing, but he refused. The Western world is fighting terrorism and what we are fighting now is terrorism because these people have guns and they are hoisting the flag of Al-Qaeda on some Egyptian institutions in their demonstrations and terrorising Egyptians as we all saw on TV.
But there are allegations that Muslim Brotherhood leaders are political detainees?
As a matter of fact, there are no political detainees among them as all detained figures from Muslim Brotherhood face criminal charges resulting from the use or incitement of violence, committing torture as well as other criminal charges. All such legal procedures are undertaken by the full supervision of the Public Prosecutor Office or an investigative judge. These people are armed groups with guns, rifles, canons and we have evidence.
Looking at all these skirmishes, is the envisaged transitional programme still possible?
Yes it is possible. We have nothing to hide. Western leaders from all over the world visited Egypt during the last period and they met the Muslim Brotherhood and all political parties. They should have understood everything and stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood who are perpetrating terrorism. The national reconciliation is ongoing; we are still asking the Muslim Brotherhood to join like all other liberal parties. We are not against the Muslim Brotherhood as such, but we are against the use of force and terrorism. They were asked to join the government, the national reconciliation, commission for the formulation of the constitution and they refused, but the process is still ongoing. The Egyptian people gave them an opportunity to change but they are instead talking about a supra-national Islamic State or an Ottoman empire. We are in 2013 and we cannot be living in the Middle Ages.
We want our friends to believe in the Egyptian people. We have evidence that Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood had taken some steps against the national security of Egypt. Nobody can accept this. I am surprised to see that Western and civilised countries are either giving a deaf ear or a blind eye towards the atrocities being committed by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Christians in Egypt. We in Egypt live like brothers with the Copts. Independent statistics show that there were 35 attacks against the Copts on August 14. They burned churches and was it Islam that asked them to burn churches, shops of the Copts and detain clergymen? I am surprised that the Western world said nothing. But we still hope that our friends and the Western democratic countries should not give an opportunity to strengthen the position of the Muslim Brotherhood. We are against the exclusion of any Egyptian and what we are fighting against is terrorism.
