Morsi loyalists in Egypt call for new demonstrations

Supporters of Egypt's deposed leader Mohammed Morsi protest in Cairo Islamist supporters of Egypt's deposed leader Mohammed Morsi planned new rallies on Friday as the interim premier suggested a crackdown on their protest camps was imminent. Morsi supporters called for marches to begin after the Muslim Friday prayers at noon (around 1000 GMT) as the nation rested on the second day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The government had said it held off from breaking up the protest camps in Cairo out of respect for the holy month of Ramadan, which ended on Wednesday night, and to give foreign mediators a chance to end the deadlock peacefully.
But prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi warned late on Thursday "that the situation is approaching the moment we would rather avoid".
"The government wants to give the protesters, especially the reasonable ones among them, a chance to reconcile and heed the voice of reason," he said in a television interview quoted in a cabinet statement.
Pro-Morsi protesters set up two protest camps in Cairo days before his overthrow on July 3 in a popularly backed military coup.
They insist they will disperse only when Morsi, who ruled for just a year after the first democratic presidential election in the Arab world's most populous nation, is reinstated.
Beblawi's comments on Thursday were the latest warning from the army-installed government of a crackdown on the protest camps.
However, the protesters remain defiant, even after more than 100 people, mostly Morsi loyalists, were killed in previous confrontations with police and soldiers.
"The Egyptian people are continuing, and the days will only increase their determination to persist in their peaceful struggle until the country returns to the democratic path, until the coup is completely ended," the Anti-Coup Alliance said in a statement on Friday.
The pro-Morsi group called for the marches to set off from different Cairo mosques.
Meanwhile Morsi’s wife told thousands of his supporters that her husband “is coming back, God willing.”
Naglaa Mahmoud’s first appearance since July 3 seemed aimed at galvanizing support after the group fell from power after just one year of Morsi’s rule.
Wearing a flowing veil that covered most of her body, Mahmoud spoke to the crowds gathered at a sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo’s Nasr City suburb. She recited a verse from the Quran before delivering what she described as “good news,” saying Egypt “is Islamic.”
“We are victorious,” Mahmoud told the crowd, saying protesters would overcome.
Initially, the Egyptian press suggested that Mahmoud was held with her husband in undisclosed location along with one of her children. Demonstrators at Nasr City cheered her arrival to the makeshift stage. She did not say where she had been since the coup.
Morsi is held with his top aides, a number of whom have been transferred over the past days to a prison in southern Cairo. They face charges including instigating violence in various incidents that led to deadly street clashes over Morsi’s rule.
Additional source: AFP