US supporters attempt to destabilize Egypt

A Cairo-based Islamic thinker says that Morsi’s opponents, who are against President’s decree, are the ones who are against democracy and stability of the country and they are the ones to have an American agenda not President Morsi and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian opposition groups have rejected President Mohamed Morsi’s referendum, scheduled for mid-December to sound out support for the country’s draft constitution, and called for more protests on Tuesday. The recent development comes as massive protests against Morsi have broken out in the country after he issued a controversial decree on November 22, declaring that no judicial body can dissolve the Constituent Assembly, which was writing the draft. The decree allowed the president to take “any decision or measure to protect the revolution.” It also made decisions and laws issued by the president “final and not subject to appeal.”

Press TV has conducted an interview with a Cairo-based Islamic thinker, Shaker Rizk to shed more light on the issue at hand. He is joined by two additional guests: Jamal Wakim, political analyst from the Lebanese capital city of Beirut and Saeed Sadek, political analyst from the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Why do you think that Morsi in general has backed down from this decree? Why did President Morsi back down from the original decree?

Rizk: There is a big difference between them. The cancellation of the 22nd of November decree, is completely cancelled with a modification of the article number one just to reopen investigations after getting certain evidence against people who were killing and murdering and injuring the revolutionaries on the January 25th 2011 until the 13th of June 2012.

This -period-is actually getting all people innocent, especially the remnants and the people who were killing the revolutionaries in Tahrir [Freedom] square and in the Muhammed Mahmoud [street] and in the different squares.

This new article, with evidence reopening investigation and prosecutions for those people, is completely to satisfy the needs of…, or actually to meet desires of the political parties as well as the revolutionaries in Tahrir [square] and in the whole country.

The second thing is that having the –constitutional– articles of the constitution for the referendum on the 15th after the agreement of the different political parties during the dialogue yesterday, which took place over 12 hours, coming out with sort of an agreement on getting the people to undertake the referendum and to go to the ballot boxes and say the world whether they agree or disagree to the constitution ……

Press TV: Your take on this? Our guest in Beirut [Jamal Wakim] is saying that what President Morsi did was definitely in line with the America’s agenda, that this is something that Washington, actually, wanted him to do and he did not expect the type of resistances that he faced on the streets throughout Egypt.

Rizk: Well, with all respects to my colleagues I would state that for the internal environment on the political side, we can never reach a quorum concerning the constitutional articles and the constitution; but the opposing parties as well as the political powers, which are opposing President Morsi, would put obstacles for him, in front of him, not to develop and promote the country to move into freedom and democracy that is, actually, reported in the ballot box, in the parliament as well as in the presidency elections; one.

Number two, President Morsi is not working according to an American agenda, as my colleague mentioned, my two colleagues actually mentioned.

President Morsi, actually, is accusing the opposing parties of moving with an American agenda then, because ElBaradei went to the United States, he got there to be empowered by the Western people, he went to Germany with [interviewed with] Der Spiegel and announced that the [Muslim] Brotherhood as well as the Brotherhoodizing, as they call it, the establishments and institutions of the country as well as the political agenda of the Brotherhood party is taking place in the country, which is actually, against the American agenda as we all know.

My colleague, who mentioned the foreign policy as well as the Iranian intervention in the whole picture, I would say that, how about the Gaza settlements? And the successful efforts done by President Morsi that was hailed and expressed in good terms by all people, all political parties in the world, in Iran, in Turkey, in the United States, in the Arab World as well as the Palestinian arena itself?

President Morsi was very successful to handle the thing and the fundamentalists that my friend mentioned, those fundamentalists were elected by the people, I mean by the majority of the people and they are now in the political scene, they have a word to say, you have to listen to.

Why the opposing party having the only word as if it is…, is it democracy then? My colleagues in there should define democracy to me then.

Press TV: Mr. Rizk what do you think about that? Do you think that the country is extremely divided at this point and as our guest has said that the cause is President Morsi or not?

Rizk: Yes, I cannot [could not] get the last point that my colleague mentioned but I took certain things in here that my colleague mentioned concerning the documents that CIA and the intervention of he CIA, as I got from what he said, in the [Muslim] Brotherhood and helping them to get into powe; this is untrue, this is absolutely untrue and I would say that the Muslim Brotherhood since the 20th of the previous century, were on the ground, were struggling against tyranny and against any sort of tyranny that took place during the kingdom of the kings in Egypt as well as the revolution [of] President Nasser and President [Anwar] Sadat, the Muslim Brotherhood was the only people [one] working on the ground.

Liberals, who came into focus now, who are trying to put obstacles in the progress of democracy in the country, I am asking them to come to the ballot boxes and this is democracy, this is complete democracy, this is what the nation, the people, the citizens would say about who they want to be governing them, to take the rule, to be empowered and to be leading the country.

The minority…, this is what I would say, that the minority are trying to impress and get to suppress, even, the majority’s opinion and to enforce their opinion over those people.

If you go to Tahrir square now and see the people in there, who are opposing President Morsi and the decrees that took place yesterday, and you go to the different areas in the country, even in Cairo, you will find that the demonstrations taking place supporting the President, people are going for the constitution for the stability of the country and the stability of the economic, social and political environment in the country. We are trying to go in there because the referendum would be the only place in there and the opposing parties, 95 percent of the articles of the constitution …, and this is why I am here to say a word about the constitution, 95 percent of the articles had a quorum, had a sort of an agreement, unanimous agreement to be in the referendum.

The 12 articles or 10 to 12 articles that need some sort of an amendment…, the president gave some sort of guard to this. Come and discuss this with us, come and say a word about it, write your own amendments and the parliament, once elected, can just change this with a declaration, another constitutional declaration.

Press TV: Mr. Rizk your take on that [what the previous guest mentioned]? We are just about out of time.

Rizk: Well, I completely disagree to what my colleague said actually. Egyptians and Muslim Brotherhood, President Morsi, the opponents of what he has undertaken these days, do not have any American agenda, I would say.

Liberals are the people who are having the American agenda, who are destroying the country, who are against the referendum, against the agreement to come to the ballot boxes and the stability of the country.

Look at the people, who are considered the “Saviors” of the country now, those are the losers of the elections …..