El Shater & Abu Ismail Arrested | US Urges Peaceful Civil Transition


Police announced the arrest of both Khairat el-Shater, Deputy Supreme Guide of Muslim Brotherhood, and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the leader of the hardline Islamist Al-Raya Party, in Cairo today. El-Shater and Ismail are charged with inciting violence in clashes in Moqattam and Bein El-Sarayat. In an interview with the state Middle East News Agency, Minister of Social Affairs Nagwa Khalil stated that she had ordered an investigation into the possible dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood. This investigation would focus on the presence of a “militia wing” of the Brotherhood, which is registered as a nongovernmental organization under Law 84.

Reports emerged that Mohamed ElBaradei was expected to be named as interim Prime Minister by interim President Adly Mansour. In response, the deputy leader of the al-Nour party, Ahmed Khalil, stated that the party would withdraw from the transitional government if ElBaradei were named Prime Minister as such an act “violates that which the political and national powers had agreed on with General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.”

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel held three conversations with al-Sisi urging “a peaceful civilian transition in Egypt.” Mohamed Beltagi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood official, spoke at a Muslim Brotherhood protest camp outside northeast Cairo and condemned what he saw as the lack of criticism by Western nations of the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. He then predicted that the ensuing violence in clashes would be detrimental to the West.

Hussein Ibrahim, Secretary-General of the Freedom and Justice Party, announced that the FJP would not participate in talks with interim President Adly Mansour, stating that the Party would not acknowledge the military coup and that “Mohamed Morsi is the legitimate president of Egypt.”

In the Masaid area of Arish, in North Sinai, two men repeatedly shot at Father Mina Abboud Sharubim, who was driving from his home to the Mar Mina Church. Father Sharubim died immediately, while the two attackers fled with his car. Another Christian, Magdi Lamai Habib, was kidnapped by two unknown attackers in Sheikh Zuwayd, another town located close to the Gaza Strip border in North Sinai. In Nagaa Hassan, military police arrived in response to the sectarian attacks against Christians from the prior day. They arrested 25 local Muslims on July 6 (and 17 more on July 7).