EGYPT FJP News
November 22, 2012
3 minutes read

Erian: Current Mohamed Mahmoud Street Clashes Bizarre

Dr. Essam El-Erian, Vice-Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said Mohamed Mahmoud commemoration events ended and all political forces left the scene, and that those now present, near the Ministry of Interior, are strange faces – with no political interest in mind.

Erian pointed that former regime loyalists had a hand in the latest clashes, and added that a group of dubious journalists and politicians who used to collaborate with Mubarak and lick his shoes, now deliberately slander a President elected by popular will in a way unbecoming of any politician or media professional.

During an interview with Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel, Erian said, “Someone wants to turn the scene in Egypt into an arena for revenge and reprisals, like the situation prevailing in Iraq or Syria. The FJP’s first message, after President Morsi’s election victory, was that we would not engage in settling accounts; that we did not come to take revenge, although we – as a political group – suffered the most over the last sixty years, being persistently persecuted, executed, detained and imprisoned.

"Why didn’t any of these criticize the Public Prosecutor who covered-up cases of corruption, cases involving carcinogenic wheat, carcinogenic pesticides, and the sinking of the Egyptian ferry? I ask the Supreme Judicial Council to instruct the Public Prosecutor to investigate these cases, or interrogate the Public Prosecutor himself."

On the constitution crisis, Erian said: "Withdrawals from the charter-drafting panel is purely a media bubble. Certain political players applied fierce pressure on some panel members to pull out. One of them said it clearly: ‘If this constitution is written by angels, we will not accept it, because we are not panel members’ although he persistently refused to joint from the outset.

"The constitution will be the best ever written in Egypt, because it comes through an elected panel, not imposed by some authority. This simply has never happened throughout the history of Egypt. We have an elected president; and now we want a constitution that improves people’s lives, so we can build state institutions and achieve stability and security. Nevertheless, someone still wants all troubles to remain hanging in the air."