On July 3, 2013, then-President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by a coup d'etat led by Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who led a coalition to remove Morsi from power and suspend the Egyptian constitution of 2012. The move came after an ultimatum that the government "resolve its differences" with protesters during widespread national protests. Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders were placed under house arrest and Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mansour was declared interim president of Egypt. The announcement was followed by demonstrations and clashes between supporters and opponents of the move throughout Egypt.
There were mixed international reactions to the events. Most Arab leaders were generally supportive or neutral, with the exception of Qatar, Tunisia and the SNC who strongly condemned the military's actions. The US avoided describing the action as a coup. Other states either condemned or expressed concern over the removal of Morsi. Due to the regulations of the African Union regarding the interruption of constitutional rule by a member state, Egypt was suspended from that union.
Ensuing protests in favour of Morsi were violently suppressed culminating with the dispersal and massacre of pro-Morsi sit-ins on 14 August 2013, amid ongoing unrest; journalists and several hundred protestors were killed by police and military force. Muslim Brotherhood members claim 2,600 people were killed. Human Rights Watch documented a minimum of 904 deaths, describing it as crimes against humanity and "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history," while the government puts the figure at 624.
Background
In February 2011, Hosni Mubarak resigned after 18 days of mass demonstrations that ended his 29-year rule of Egypt. In July 2011, the caretaker government approved an election law, leading to the election of a Parliament in December 2011 – January 2012, and an advisory council in January–February 2012. An alliance led by the Freedom and Justice Party won the most seats in each election. An additional 25% of the members of the advisory council were to be appointed by the President. In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi won the presidential election with 51.73% of total votes to become the first democratically elected president of Egypt. In June 2012, prior to Morsi being sworn in as president, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the election law was unconstitutional and ordered the elected bodies dissolved. After assuming office, President Morsi appointed additional members to the advisory council from 35 political parties and invited the elected bodies to meet to discuss the ruling of the court.
The elected parliament determined that the constitutional court did not have authority to dissolve an elected parliament, then referred the matter to the Court of Cassation. The elected parliament could not pass any laws, but the advisory council continued to give advice on proposed Presidential Decrees. Parliament also proceeded with the creation of a new constitutional committee to draft amendments to the Egyptian Constitution, replacing the committee created in March 2012 but dissolved by the constitutional court. Proposed constitutional amendments were approved in December 2012 by a national referendum. New elections were scheduled for April 2013 under a law approved in draft by the constitutional court, but were postponed to October 2013 to comply with a technical order of an administrative court.
In November 2012, following the protests against the Constitutional Declaration by Morsi, opposition politicians – including Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, according to The Wall Street Journal – started holding confidential meetings with army leaders, in order to discuss ways of removing President Morsi.
On 28 April 2013, Tamarod was started as a grassroots movement to collect signatures to remove Morsi by 30 June. They called for peaceful demonstrations across Egypt especially in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo. The movement was supported by the National Salvation Front, April 6 Youth Movement and Strong Egypt Party.
In a poll published by the Pew Research Center in May 2013, 54% of Egyptians approved of Morsi against a 43% who saw him negatively, while about 30% were happy with the direction of the country, 73% thought positively of the army and only 35% were content about local policy authorities. In the lead up to the protests, a Gallup poll indicated a drop in approval of the national government from 57% in November 2012 to 24% in June 2013. About a third of Egyptians said they were "suffering" and viewed their lives poorly.
At a conference on 15 June, Morsi called for foreign intervention in Syria. According to Yasser El-Shimy, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, this statement crossed "a national security red line." The army rebuked this statement the next day by stating that its only role was to guard Egypt's borders. Although the Egyptian constitution ostensibly declares the president as the supreme commander of the armed forces, the Egyptian military is independent of civilian control.
As the first anniversary of Morsi's presidential inauguration approached in 2013, his supporters such as the National Coalition for Supporting Legitimacy started demonstrations at multiple places including El-Hossari Mosque, El-Nahda Square, outside Cairo University, outside Al-Rayan Mosque in the posh suburb of Maadi, and in Ain Shams district. They had started open-ended rallies. The largest protest was planned for 30 June.
Causes
The removal of Morsi from office by the coalition was a result of a coup d'état following protests, that were instigated by frustration with Morsi's year-long rule in which Egypt faced economic issues, energy shortages, lack of security, and diplomatic crises. Some of the issues that might have caused the protests and lead to the later removal of Morsi include:
- Claims by the National Salvation Front and other opposition organizations that there were irregularities in the 2012 referendum on changes to Egypt's constitution. Various members of the Constituent Assembly including church representatives subsequently withdrew due to their dissatisfaction with the content of the changes.
- Unprecedented economic crises including power, fuel and foreign currency shortages.
- Worsening state security with incidents including the murder of 16 border guards in Sinai, kidnappings and the blowing up of a gas pipeline supplying Israel and Jordan on numerous occasions.
- Egyptian military economic interests. Estimates of the military's share of Egypt's economy range from 5% to 40% and include industries such as mining, real estate, farming and the production of household appliances. The military has long opposed modern economic policies such as privatization that threaten their position in the economy.
- Foreign interference: In 2015 secret audio recordings of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and members of his inner circle were leaked that indicated that during Morsi's presidency the UAE provided funds to the Egyptian Defense Ministry to launch a protest campaign against President Mohamed Morsi and funded the Tamarod protest movement. The recordings contained other highly controversial contents.
Planning
Leaked tapes from the summer of 2013 that were later verified by J. P. French Associates recorded figures of the Egyptian military, including former General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, suggesting that the Egyptian military was involved in the mass-protests preceding Morsi's ouster. In one of the leaked tapes, the generals are heard discussing rigging the legal case against Morsi, and in another, authorizing the withdrawal of a large sum of money for the army's use from the bank account of Tamarod, the ostensibly independent grassroots group that was organizing protests against President Morsi. The tapes also suggest high-level collusion between the coup plotters and the Government of the United Arab Emirates as the money that was to be transferred from Tamarod's account into the army's account was provided by the UAE. The tapes were first released on the Qatari-owned Egyptian Islamist channel Mekameleen, a fact that the Egyptian government says discredits the tapes as fakes. American officials later confirmed that the United Arab Emirates was indeed providing financial support for the protests against Morsi that preceded the military coup. There is also evidence on the support of the military coup plotters by the Egyptian economic elites. Egypt's Interior Ministry was seen as most influential in the lead-up to the coup d’état as a revenge for powers lost during the Egyptian revolution of 2011 according to a Reuters analysis.
Events
On 28 June, protests against Morsi started to build throughout Egypt including in such cities as Cairo, Alexandria, Dakahlia, Gharbiya and Aswan as a "warm up" for the massive protests expected on 30 June that were planned by Tamarod. Pro-Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood supporters started counter demonstrations at the Rabia Al-Adawiya Mosque in Nasr City.
Prior to the protests, Christians, particularly in Upper Egypt, received threats from pro-Morsi protestors, pressuring them not to take part in the protests. Sheikh Essam Abdulamek, a member of parliament's Shura Council, said in an interview on television that Christians should not participate in the protests and warned them "do not sacrifice your children [since the] general Muslim opinion will not be silent about the ousting of the president."
According to information that came out after President Morsi was removed from office, officials claimed that Morsi stopped working at the Egyptian Presidential Palace on 26 June and moved with his family to El-Quba Palace.
On 29 June, Tamarod claimed that it collected more than 22 million signatures from a petition calling for Morsi to step down as president.
On the other hand, the coup was preceded by the reconciliation of military and economic elites who organized shortages of fuel to provoke discontent of general population toward the Morsi administration.
30 June: Anti-Morsi demonstrations
On 30 June, according to unverified military sources, 14 million protesters demonstrated across Egypt against Morsi. The protestors expressed their anger at the Brotherhood, which they accuse of hijacking Egypt's revolution and using electoral victories to monopolize power and impose Islamic law. However, independent observers raised concerns about the wild exaggeration of the number of actual anti-Morsi protestors, with one crowd statistical expert study indicating that a little over than 1 million people protested against Morsi across the whole country. Hundreds of thousands in support of Morsi gathered in Rabaa Square in Cairo and other cities. In Damietta, 250 fishing boat sailors demonstrated against Morsi by sailing through the Nile and chanting against him. The president moved that day from Quba Palace to the Republican Guard headquarters, while protesters thought he was at Ittihadeya Palace.
1 July: Deadlines and options
On 1 July, again more than 1 million demonstrators against Morsi gathered in Tahrir Square and outside the presidential palace, while other demonstrations were held in the cities of Alexandria, Port Said and Suez. Some police officers wearing their uniforms joined the anti-Morsi protests and chanted: "The police and the people are one." In clashes around the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Mokattam, eight people died. Their headquarters were ransacked and burned while protesters threw objects at windows and looted the building, making off with office equipment and documents. Tamarod gave President Mohamed Morsi until 2 July at 17:00 to resign or face a civil disobedience campaign. That was followed by the Egyptian Armed Forces issuing a 48-hour ultimatum that gave the country's political parties until 3 July to meet the demands of the Egyptian people. The Egyptian military also threatened to intervene if the dispute was not resolved by then. Four ministers also resigned on the same day: Tourism Minister Hisham Zazou (who previously offered to resign a few months earlier after Morsi appointed an Islamist member of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the group allegedly responsible of the Luxor massacre, though the group has denied this charge, as governor of Luxor), Communication and IT Minister Atef Helmi, State Minister for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Hatem Bagato, and State Minister for Environmental Affairs Khaled Abdel Aal, leaving the government with only members of the Freedom and Justice Party.
On the same day, Barack Obama called Morsi. The call went along the United States' vision that the only option out of the stressed situation would be to call for an early general presidential election in which Morsi is not a candidate. Morsi replied, "the Egyptian people decide," before he closed the line.