Egypt's army vows to intervene if rallies grow violent

PanARMENIAN.Net - Egypt's army has cautioned that it will intervene next weekend if mass rallies against the president descend into violence, in one of its strongest warnings since it handed over to civilian government a year ago, The Guardian reports.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the defense minister, said he would not allow "attack on the will of the people" and called for political reconciliation in the week before mass rallies against President Mohamed Mursi next Sunday, June 30.

"There is a state of division in society and the continuation of it is a danger to the Egyptian state and there must be consensus among all," Sisi said.

Mursi's opponents plan to organize massive protests on June 30, the first anniversary of his election – a day that is the subject of frenzied speculation on both the Egyptian streets and in its media.

Many claim they will not leave the streets until the fall of Mursi's regime, arguing that for all his talk of democratic legitimacy, he has little respect for wider democratic values. The army has said it will deploy troops on the streets on that day, while the president says he may introduce a state of emergency if, as expected, the protests spark widespread civil unrest.

More than 15 million Egyptians have signed a petition calling for the president's downfall, furious at Morsi's unilateralism and impatient at plummeting living standards.

On Saturday, Mohamed ElBaradei – a leader of Egypt's secular opposition – asked Mursi to step down, at a press conference provocatively entitled "After the departure". Wael Ghonim, one of the most prominent activists from the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, has also called for Mursi to act as a "patriotic Egyptian" and resign.