Friday, August 14, 2015

Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya Calls for Dialogue to End Egypt's 'Polarization'
Ahram Online
Friday 14 Aug 2015

The political arm of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, an Islamist group that robustly supported ousted president Mohamed Morsi, called for a dialogue to end political polarisation on Friday, the second anniversary of the deadly dispersal of the pro-Morsi Rabaa protest camp in 2013.

"We all should work on reaching a political solution away from the unfeasible, which will only led us to more death and loss of assets," the Building and Development Party said in a statement.

"We also call on media outlets and also all political and cultural elites to stop spreading hatred among Egyptians, which has produced a societal rift."

This is the not the first time the party has called for initiatives to end the conflict between Egypt's current authorities and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails.

In May, party chairman Tarik El-Zomor called on Islamist factions to "accept all their opponents", urging the Muslim Brotherhood in particular to "deal with and accept" President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's rule.

Some observers had linked those calls with some local media reports which stated that some Islamist groups – although not Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood – are willing to reconcile with the current regime.

Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and its Building and Development Party were instrumental in forming the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, a coalition that has been calling for the reinstatement ofMorsi since his 2013 ouster.

However, the majority of the coalition members have announced that they are withdrawing and currently they are not taking part in any major political activity.

On Sunday, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya lost one of its leaders, Essam Derbala, after he died in jail. The group said on its website that Derbala was "denied medicine, which caused him to fall into a deep coma that resulted in his death." The interior ministry have denied any responsibility for his death.

On Friday, Al-Watan Party, a pro-Morsi Salafist grouping, issued a statement which also calls for "the essence of national reconciliation on the basis of respecting law and the constitution, despite what the country has witnessed in recent years in terms of crimes and sins against this nation and its people."

The second anniversary of the deadly dispersal of the Rabaa and the Nahda sit-ins witnessed a few small demonstrations in various parts of the country by Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Under a strict law passed in late 2013, protesting without a police permit is illegal and punishable by jail sentences.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/137849.aspx

No comments: