US urges Egyptian army to free Mursi

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of deposed  president Mohamed Mursi shout slogans while holding Egyptian flags, at the Rabaa Adawiya Square, where they are camping, in Cairo yesterday.

AFP/Cairo

The US yesterday called on Egypt’s military to free deposed president Mohamed Mursi, as tens of thousands of his supporters vowed to keep fighting for his reinstatement.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US agreed with Germany’s earlier appeal for Mursi to be released and was “publicly” making the same request.

The deposed Islamist president has been held in a “safe place,” according to Egypt’s interim leaders, and has not been seen in public since his ouster on July 3.

Psaki said US officials had been in regular contact with all sectors of Egyptian society, and Washington was echoing German calls for “an end to restrictions on Mr Mursi’s whereabouts”.

A German foreign ministry spokesman said a “trusted institution” such as the International Committee of the Red Cross should be granted access to Mursi.

As night fell on Cairo, tens of thousands of Islamist protesters prayed and broke their fast together on the first weekend of the holy month of Ramadan.

They had spent the day protesting outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the Nasr City neighbourhood, chanting against the military’s removal of Egypt’s first freely-elected president.

“We are here to deliver a message to the military that we won’t give up on legitimacy. We will fight for our rights,” said protester Ashraf Fangari.

“We are here to defend our votes. They were stolen from us.”

Millions of Egyptians had taken to the streets to demand Mursi’s resignation - accusing him of being a puppet of the Muslim Brotherhood and of failing to fulfil the people’s aspirations of freedom and social justice.

The mass anti-Mursi demonstrations prompted an army intervention and days of bloody clashes.

“We will continue to resist. We will stay one or two months, or even one or two years. We won’t leave here until our president, Mohamed Mursi, comes back,” key Islamist leader Safwat Hegazi told yesterday’s crowd.

Hegazi demanded Mursi’s reinstatement, immediate parliamentary elections and a committee to oversee a plan for national reconciliation.

Thousands also massed in support of Mursi outside the University of Cairo, watched over by a heavy security presence.

Despite the defiance, the interim authorities are pressing ahead with forming a new government amid financial help from Gulf states to shore up the faltering economy.