Strong Egypt Party not to take part in Nov. 28 protests - spokesman

Monday 24-11-2014 07:04 PM
Strong Egypt Party not to take part in Nov. 28 protests - spokesman

Presidential candidate, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh - Aswat Masriya

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CAIRO, Nov 24 (Aswat Masriya) - Strong Egypt Party, headed by former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouhwill not participate in the protests scheduled for Friday, November 28, its spokesman said Monday.

The Salafist front is organising protests on Friday, calling on people to take to the streets holding Qurans to "impose the Islamic identity."

The dispute with the current regime is essentially about rights and freedoms fought against by the regime, not a dispute about identity, Ahmed Imam stressed in a statement.

The party rejects any calls to incite violence and calls upon everyone to commit to non-violence, reject and refrain from justification of violence, Imam added.

The party's reference point is the principles of the January 25 revolution, which called for freedom and social justice, not for "delusory" battles such as those of identity, Imam said.

Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood, however, welcomed on Sunday the call for the protests, describing the scheduled protests as "a new wave of the glorious Egyptian revolution" in a statement.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said last week that all security apparatuses are ready to "abort the calls of extremist groups which aim for attacking public and private property on November 28."

"The Muslim Brotherhood values this call to preserve the nation's identity for which the Egyptian people have long struggled," the Brotherhood's statement read. "The Egyptians will not accept having their identity blurred or raging a war against their sanctities, destroying their mosques, burning their Qurans, killing their youth or dragging their women."

The Brotherhood stressed that "every Egyptian faction" is entitled to expressing their opinion "with complete freedom [and] without being accused of treason or of being infidels." 

The group also warned the authorities of committing acts of "vandalism" or "killing innocent [men]" and framing "the revolution[aries]" for such acts.

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