CAIRO, Egypt — Tens of thousands of supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood amassed in main squares in several cities yesterday, waving pictures of Mohammed Morsi and chanting that the head of the military is a “traitor,” stepping up denunciations of the army over its removal of the country’s first freely elected president.
Islamists are trying to escalate their campaign of street rallies aimed at forcing the restoration of Morsi to power.
At the same time, the new military-backed administration has intensified its crackdown on the leadership of the Brotherhood, starting criminal investigations against Morsi and issuing arrest warrants on a host of others.
“We are ready to stay for a month, two months, a year or even two years,” an ultraconservative Salafi cleric, Safwat Hegazi, told protesters from a stage set up in front of the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque.