Egypt 1st-Hand: "Do I Now Regret Voting for Morsi? No."

Montage of protests against President Morsi on Friday and Saturday

---

I voted for Morsi last June, not because I liked him, but because I did not want [former Prime Minister Ahmed] Shafiq to win. Now, after Morsi’s decisions yesterday --- which I am suspicious about and do not really support --- and what is going on in Tahrir right now, do I regret voting for him? Well, no, I don’t regret my vote. Why? Because if Shafiq won in June, it would have been worse. No one would have been allowed to demonstrate in Tahrir or in any other place in Egypt. And Shafiq would have grabbed power with the help of the SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Froces]. And the terrible train crash of last Saturday would have occurred anyway, but Amr Adeeb, the famous news commentator, would have not dared to say that President Shafiq is a failure like he said about Morsi.

At least, under Morsi, the January 25 movement still has power.

Click to read more ...

Egypt Analysis: "Country Will Only Come to Life When Officers' Republic Ceases to Exist" (Sayigh)

To prevent overt military custodianship, the new president, Mohamed Morsi, and Egypt’s political parties must reach a firm consensus on limiting the exceptional powers the SCAF seeks to embed in the new constitution. Asserting effective civilian oversight over the detail of the defense budget and any other military funding streams is also key.

Yet, the civilian leaders must tread carefully. The more progress they make, the harder the officers’ republic will fight to hold on to its power, potentially using its extensive networks throughout the state apparatus to obstruct government policies and reforms, impede public service delivery, and undermine the nascent democratic order. Egypt’s second republic will only come to life when the officers’ republic ceases to exist.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "Battle" or "Massacre" in Tremseh?

UN observers move through Tremseh

See also Syria 1st-Hand: "There is Killing Everywhere in Homs"
Saudi Arabia Feature: Dissent is Alive...On Social Media & Behind Closed Doors
Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Inaction is a "Licence for Further Massacres"

---

2115 GMT: Syria. Back from an extended Sunday break to find EA sources reporting clashes in Damascus neighbourhoods, including Kafarsouseh, Tadamon, Qabir Atika, and the central area.

Reuters also has witness reports testifying to fighting.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria says 72 people have been killed today, including four in the capital and 11 in the Damascus suburbs.

A funeral earlier today in the Yabroud section of Damascus:

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: An Assad-Annan Plan?

See also Bahrain 1st-Hand Special: The Coupled Suffering of Younis and Amina Ashoori
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: UN Envoy Annan Returns to Damascus
Syria 1st-Hand: Not Quite Angels --- Making the Free Syrian Army Work as An Institution (Rafeeq)
Syria Audio Feature: "Assad's Latest Performance" --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Syria Video Feature: President Assad's Latest Interview "I Still Have Public Support"

---

2044 GMT: Saudi Arabia. Earlier we posted video reportedly showing large protests in Qatif, a response to a series of clashes between police and activists, the death of a protester, and the imprisonment of a prominent cleric.

Those protests have grown considerably:

Click to read more ...

Egypt Revealed: Military Rulers "Planned with Judge to Preserve Their Power" (Kirkpatrick)

Background on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

---

Even as they promised to hand authority to elected leaders, Egypt’s ruling generals were planning with one of the nation’s top judges to preserve their political power and block the rise of the Islamists, the judge said.

Tahani el-Gebali, deputy president of the Supreme Constitutional Court, said she advised the generals not to cede authority to civilians until a Constitution was written. The Supreme Court then issued a decision that allowed the military to dissolve the first fairly elected Parliament in Egypt’s history and assure that the generals could oversee drafting of a Constitution.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: An International Gathering in Geneva

The moment a mortar or shell hit a funeral procession in the Damascus suburb of Zamalka today --- at least 20 people were reportedly killed (see 1800 GMT)

See also Saudi Arabia Feature: The Professor on Trial for Speaking Out
Syria 1st-Hand: The Stories of the Widows
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 139 Die as Assad Talks of "Eliminating Terrorists" to Save Lives

---

2104 GMT: Syria Observers on the Internet appear to be racing ahead of the situation to proclaim US support of military intervention.

The catalyst is a statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the US would "accelerate" its work at the United Nation Security Council on a resolution that would "impose real and immediate consequences for non-compliance" with today's resolution of an international conference for a transitional national unity government, "including sanctions". She continued, "We should endorse this plan in the Security Council, we should endorse it with real consequences, including Chapter 7 sanctions if it is not implemented."

A Chapter 7 action provides for non-military sanctions and/or military action, but chatter is jumping to the presumption that Clinton is indicating the latter.

Click to read more ...

Egypt Live Coverage: A President is Elected --- Now What?

The crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square reacts to the announcement of the victory of Mohamed Morsi in the Presidential run-off

See also Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Away from the Headlines, "Only" 126 Dead on Sunday

---

1145 GMT: Steven Cook argues that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces prepared for yesterday's official outcome with the more important step of curbing Presidential authority:

To throw the election to [Ahmad] Shafiq, who clearly lost by almost a million votes, would have produced an outpouring of anger and possible violence that the military must have concluded it could not control. It did not matter, though. Declaring Shafiq the winner despite the results was wholly unnecessary due to what the military clearly believes is its ace: the June 17 constitutional declaration.

The timing of the decree, just as polls closed on the second day of the second round of elections, suggests that the military’s action was improvised. As if sometime on Sunday afternoon, one of the officers turned to another and asked with alarm, “What if Morsi wins?” It was anything but ad hoc, however.

Shortly after the fall of Mubarak, Field Marshal Tantawi asked for a translation of Turkey’s 1982 constitution, which both endows Turkish officers with wide-ranging powers to police the political arena and curtails the power of civilian leaders. In the June 17 decree, the military hedged against a Morsi victory by approximating the tutelary role the Turkish military enjoyed until recently. As a result, President Morsi does not control the budget; has no foreign policy, defense, or national security function; and has been stripped of the president’s duty as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, meaning he has no control over military personnel. In addition, having dissolved parliament in a move that has no legal basis, the SCAF now also functions as Egypt’s legislature. Finally, the military will be able to veto articles of a new constitution.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Nothing Certain but Death & Protests

2210 GMT: Syria. By the end of the day, more than 75 people have been killed today in Syria. Large protests, and reports of violence, continue well into the night.

One look at out interactive map (created with help from EA intern Josh Moss), and we can see that the reports of both large protests and violence were not isolated to a few locations, but were very widespread. This provides more evidence that the violence, as well as the opposition to Assad, are intensifying and spreading in every corner of the country:

View Syria - 2012 June 22 - EA Worldview in a larger map

2200 GMT: Bahrain. Was the head of AlWefaq specically targeted by police? Activists claim that this is the case, and they provide this photo as evidence:

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: 90 Die as Obama and Putin Talk About Conflict

See also Monday's Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Morsi Claims Presidential Win, But Military Tightens Grip on Power

---

2145 GMT: Egypt. Rumours have circulated for hours that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak suffered a stroke today. Now a Ministry of Interior spokesman has confirmed the report, while State news agency MENA says Mubarak is "clinically dead" after he was moved from prison to a military hospital.

MENA said Mubarak's heart stopped and a defibrillator was used to restart it.

1925 GMT: Egypt. The massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square tonight, protesting military rule:

Click to read more ...

Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Morsi Claims Presidential Win, But Military Tightens Grip on Power

See also Turkey Analysis: An Opposition MP Gives Prime Minister Erdogan An Edge on the Kurdish Issue
Bahrain Opinion: Why Younis Ashoori's Imprisonment Points to Repression Rather than Reform
Sunday's Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Vote of Uncertainty

---

1948 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria claim 51 people have died at the hands of security forces today, including 15 in the Damascus suburbs and 12 in Homs Province.

1639 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of Syrian forces dragging away two unarmed women:

Click to read more ...