Kifaya Calls for Marking July 23rd With Civil Disobedience

Kifaya Movement calls on all Egyptian people to take part in a civil disobedience campaign, under the slogan “Stay at Home”. It encourages all citizens to stay at home on July, 23rd, 55th anniversary of July Revolution, and raise Egyptian flags and also hang black ribbons on doors of houses as a kind of protest against policies adopted by the current Egyptian regime .
 
For his part, George Ishak, the ex-general coordinator of Kifaya Movement, said in a statement to Ikhwanweb that:” Kifaya Movement is not the original source of this idea. This civil disobedience and slogan of ” Stay at Home” are first raised by a group of young men. Kifaya Movement thinks that it can offer help and take part in this campaign. We are backing and spreading this suggestion nationwide and on the cyberspace. This is because this idea is the beginning of a civil disobedience movement. We can’t confront this regime except through a civil disobedience .
 
Our message is, Ishak noted, we want people to stay at home on July, 23rd and raise Egyptian flags on balconies as a kind of protest, if they don’t want to take to streets and hold demonstrations or vigils.
 
Ishak added” Civil disobedience may be outlandish for the Egyptian society. We are working now for spreading this culture and want to see to what extent people will respond and interact with this new form of protest.
 
 
Asked why 23 July in particular, Ishak said:” In this day, we mark the anniversary of the July Revolution which was accompanied by many principles that have unfortunately disappeared due to tyranny of the current regime. This civil disobedience on that day is a kind of protest against the status quo. Add to this that 23 July is a holiday.”
 
For his part, Hussein Ibrahim, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) parliamentary bloc, said:” All Egyptian people need real political reforms. The Egyptian regime must backtrack on its current autocratic policies to address people’s demands when all popular powers are united. We want all political powers to have an effective role in the Egyptian street. We want them to close ranks so that such an effective role bears fruit.”
 
“We, the MB parliamentary bloc, stress that we want all political powers to play an effective and strong role. We see, at the same time, that this regime will address people’s demands only when it sees all political powers united and all of them exercise pressures on it. For example, when we, all political powers, agreed on boycotting the latest referendum on the constitutional amendments, we proved that our attitude can be effective, specially after human rights organizations declared the turnout to be only from 3 to 4 % , said Ibrahim.
 
Ibrahim confirmed that the MB parliamentary bloc welcomes any political and social activities that aims at raising Egyptian people’s awareness.