WThe Egyptian Crisis began with the Egyptian revolution of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in an ideologically and socially diverse mass protest movement that ultimately forced longtime president Hosni Mubarak from office. A protracted political crisis ensued, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces taking control of the country until a series of popular elections, which are thought to have been tampered with, brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. However, disputes between elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and secularists continued until the anti-government protests in June 2013 that led to the overthrow of Morsi in 2013, in what has been variably described as a coup d'état or as an ending to the second revolution, or both. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who announced the overthrow of Morsi, then became the leader of Egypt the following year, winning election to the presidency in a landslide victory described by EU observers as free but not necessarily fair. Nonetheless, Sisi's election was widely recognized, and the political situation has largely stabilized since he officially took power; however, some protests have continued despite a government crackdown. The crisis has also worsened an ongoing insurgency led by Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in the Sinai Peninsula, which became increasingly intertwined with the regional conflict against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant later in 2014.
WA constitutional referendum was held in Egypt on 19 March 2011, following the 2011 Egyptian revolution. More than 14 million (77%) were in favour, while around 4 million (23%) opposed the changes; 41% of 45 million eligible voters turned out to vote.
WThere have been numerous domestic responses to the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Opposition parties, activists and religious bodies have been staunchly demanding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, with the exception of fearful Christian authorities, who called for staying away from the protests. The government has made ongoing attempts at media censorship, including briefly shutting down nearly all Internet traffic.
WThe following is a chronological summary of the major events that occurred during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, after Hosni Mubarak's resignation. Protests and riots led to the deaths of hundreds, injuries of thousands and the arrests of tens of thousands. Millions have mobilised the streets since the revolution.
WThe following chronological summary of major events took place during the 2011 Egyptian revolution right up to Hosni Mubarak's resignation as the fourth President of Egypt on 11 February 2011.
WA constitutional referendum was held in Egypt in two rounds on 15 and 22 December 2012. Egyptians living abroad were scheduled to vote between 8 and 11 December. Voting for expatriates had been delayed until 12 December 2012 and was extended until 17 December 2012. Voters were asked whether they approve of the draft constitution that was approved by the Constituent Assembly on 30 November 2012.
WA presidential election was held in Egypt in two rounds, the first on 23 and 24 May 2012 and the second on 16 and 17 June. The Muslim Brotherhood declared early 18 June 2012, that its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won Egypt's presidential election, which would be the first victory of an Islamist as head of state in the Arab world. It was the second presidential election in Egypt's history with more than one candidate, following the 2005 election, and the first presidential election after the 2011 Egyptian revolution which ousted president Hosni Mubarak, during the Arab Spring. However, Morsi's presidency was brief and short-lived, and he later faced massive protests for and against his rule, only to be ousted in a military coup in July that year.
WShura Council elections were held in Egypt between 29 January and 22 February 2012. The Freedom and Justice Party emerged as the largest party in the council, winning 105 of the 180 elected seats.
WA constitutional referendum was held in Egypt on 14 and 15 January 2014 and with Egyptians abroad voting between 8 and 12 January. The new constitution was approved by 98.1% of voters. Turnout was 38.6%.
WAl-Bernameg was an Egyptian news satire program. The show was hosted by Bassem Youssef on the free-to-air channel MBC MASR and reruns are aired on Deutsche Welle; it was formerly broadcast on the satellite channels CBC and OnTV Egypt. Bassem Youssef announced on 2 June 2014 that the show was cancelled.
WThe Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the fundamental law of Egypt.
WThe Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt was the former fundamental law of Egypt. It was signed into law by President Mohamed Morsi on 26 December 2012, after it was approved by the Constituent Assembly on 30 November 2012 and passed in a referendum held 15–22 December 2012 with 64% support, and a turnout of 33%. It replaced the 2011 Provisional Constitution of Egypt, adopted in 2011 following the Egyptian revolution. On 3 July 2013, the constitution was suspended by order of the Egyptian army. On 8 July 2013, acting President Adly Mansour issued a decree that envisaged the introduction of amendments to the constitution and put them to a referendum; if approved, the suspended-constitution would be restored into law. The current constitutional declaration has the power of a constitution; it outlines the authorities of the president and establishes many rights.
WThe Constitutional Declaration of 2011 was a measure adopted by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt on 30 March 2011. The declaration was intended to serve as the fundamental law of the country pending the enactment of a permanent constitution, following the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February.
WThe 2013 Egyptian coup d'état took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coalition to remove the President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from power and suspended the Egyptian constitution of 2012. The move came after the military's ultimatum for the government to "resolve its differences" with protesters during widespread national protests. The military arrested Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and declared Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mansour as the interim president of Egypt. The announcement was followed by demonstrations and clashes between supporters and opponents of the move throughout Egypt.
WThe 2012–13 Egyptian protests were part of a large scale popular uprising in Egypt against then-President Mohamed Morsi. On 22 November 2012, millions of protesters began protesting against Morsi, after his government announced a temporary constitutional declaration that in effect granted the president unlimited powers. Morsi deemed the decree necessary to protect the elected constituent assembly from a planned dissolution by judges appointed during the Mubarak era.
WOn 14 August 2013, Egyptian security forces and army under the command of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi raided two camps of protesters in Cairo: one at al-Nahda Square and a larger one at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. The two sites had been occupied by supporters of President Mohamed Morsi, who had been removed from office by the military a month earlier in the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. The camps were raided after initiatives to end the six-week sit-ins by peaceful means failed and as a result of the raids the camps were cleared out within hours. The raids were described by Human Rights Watch as crimes against humanity and "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history". According to Human Rights Watch, a minimum of 904 people were killed with strong evidence to suggest more likely at least 1,000 died during the dispersal. However, according to the Egyptian Health Ministry, 595 civilians and 43 police officers were killed and at least 3,994 were injured. Later, the official Forensic Medical Authority stated only 8 police officers were killed and Egypt's National Council for Human Rights stated at least 624 civilians were killed. The Muslim Brotherhood and the National Coalition for Supporting Legitimacy stated the number of deaths from the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque sit-in alone was about 2,600. The total casualty count made 14 August the deadliest day in Egypt since the 2011 Egyptian revolution which had toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Several world leaders denounced the violence during the sit-in dispersals.
WThe Egyptian revolution of 2011, also known as the 25 January Revolution, started on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country.
WOn 9 September 2011, several thousand protesters forcibly entered the Israeli embassy in Giza, Greater Cairo, after breaking down a recently constructed wall built to protect the compound. The protesters later broke into a police station and stole weapons, resulting in police using tear gas in an attempt to protect themselves. The demonstrators eventually broke through the security wall and entered the offices of the embassy. Six members of the embassy staff, who had been in a "safe room", were evacuated from the site by Egyptian commandos, following the personal intervention of United States President Barack Obama.
WThe Girl in the Blue Bra is the name given to an image of an Egyptian woman who participated in the Tahrir Square protests in opposition to Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military coup that ousted Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution in opposition to Mubarak's presidency. Her name has been undisclosed, and therefore she cannot be properly identified. The image receives its title due to the fact that the woman was stripped of her abaya while being dragged by Egyptian soldiers from the square, revealing her jeans, bare skin, and her blue bra. Such an event sparked widespread national and global reactions from individuals and the media.
WHuman rights in the post-Mubarak transition have been the subject of concern and controversy since the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Arabic: المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة, al-Maǧlis al-ʾAʿlā lil-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah in particular have been the focus of concerns about human rights violations. The SCAF, which consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military, was handed the power to govern Egypt after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011 as a consequence of the revolution.
WIn July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in Central and Western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.
WThe 30 June protests occurred in Egypt on 30 June 2013, marking the one-year anniversary of Mohamed Morsi's inauguration as president. The events ended with the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état after mass protests across Egypt demanding the immediate resignation of the president. The rallies were partly a response to Tamarod, an ostensibly grassroots movement that launched a petition in April earlier that year calling for the government to step down claiming to have collected 22 million signatures, a figure not verified by independent sources with skepticism over the rise in number by millions in a matter of days, with the Freedom and Justice Party putting the figure at 170,000 signatures. A counter campaign was launched in support of Morsi's presidency which claimed to have collected 11 million signatures. According to the Egyptian military, which calculated figured via helicopter scans of demonstration perimeters across the country, this was "the biggest protest in Egypt's history", with 32 million protesters. However, independent observers have raised concerns about wild exaggeration of the number of actual anti-Morsi protestors with one crowd statistical expert study indicating that a total of a little more than 1 million people protested against Morsi across the whole country.
WThe December 2013 Mansoura bombing occurred on the morning of Tuesday, 24 December 2013 in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura in Egypt. The target was the city's security directorate building that was partially collapsed after the attack. At least 16 people were killed, mostly policemen, while more than a hundred were injured, according to the Ministry of Interior. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but Prime Minister Hazem Al Beblawi, on behalf of the interim government, was quick to blame the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind the attack, labeling it a "terrorist organization" for the first time since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi on 3 July earlier this year. Egyptian authorities also stated that the militants received logistical support from Hamas. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an Al-Qaeda-linked group in the Sinai Peninsula, released an online statement claiming responsibility for the blast but the government sounded determined that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind it and intensified its crackdown on the organization. The incident is now widely believed by many to be a turning point in the nation's history as the future of both the Islamists and Egypt's stability remain shadowed and unclear with several violent clashes and other bombings taking place across the country following its ban.
WOperation Eagle was an Egyptian military campaign in the Sinai Peninsula, that was launched in August 2011 to confront the Sinai insurgency. The campaign was aimed against Islamist insurgents, who had been attacking the Egyptian security forces in the Sinai and using the area as a base from which to attack Israel since early 2011. Successive Egyptian operation against insurgents in 2012, named Operation Sinai, was initially referred as the second part of Operation Eagle. It was the first in a number of campaigns to retake the Sinai from insurgents that lasts to this day.
WOperation Sinai is an ongoing Egyptian military campaign, launched in early August 2012, against Islamic militants within the Sinai Peninsula to crush the Sinai Insurgency. The operation came as a direct response to the 2012 Egyptian-Israeli border attack on 5 August 2012. The operation was initially reported as part of "Operation Nisr", but on 3 September 2012, the Egyptian army issued a statement requesting media sources to use the official name "Operation Sinai."
WParliamentary elections were held in Egypt held from 28 November 2011 to 11 January 2012, following the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, after which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) dissolved Parliament. However the dissolution was ruled unconstitutional and Parliament was reinstated. Originally, the elections had been scheduled to be held in September 2011, but were postponed amid concerns that established parties would gain undue advantage.
WProtests against the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état erupted in July 2013. Immediately following the removal of President Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian Armed Forces on 3 July 2013 amid demonstrations against Morsi's rule, many protesters amassed near the Rabia Al-Adawiya Mosque to call for Morsi's return to power and condemn the military, while others demonstrated in support of the military and interim government. Deadly clashes such as Rabaa massacre continued for several days, with three particularly bloody incidents being described by Muslim Brotherhood officials as "massacres" perpetrated by security forces. During the month of Ramadan, prime minister Hazem al-Beblawy threatened to disperse the ongoing Pro-Morsi sit-ins in Rabaa al-Adaweya square and al-Nahda square. The government crackdown of these protests occurred in a violent dispersal on 14 August 2013. In mid-August, the violence directed by the army towards the protesters escalated, with hundreds killed, and the government declaring a month-long nighttime curfew.
WA presidential election in Egypt took place between 26 and 28 May 2014. There were only two candidates, former Egyptian defence minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Egyptian Popular Current candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. El-Sisi won the election in a landslide victory, having received 97% of votes.
WThe Sinai insurgency is an ongoing insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, commenced by Islamist militants against the Egyptian security forces, which has included attacks on civilians. The insurgency began after the start of the Egyptian Crisis, which saw the overthrow of longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian revolution of 2011.
WMohamed Soltan, an Egyptian-American human rights advocate who was a political prisoner in Egypt from August 2013 to May 2015. Soltan was shot, imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to life in prison after protesting against the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
WThe following is a chronological summary of the major events that occurred after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, after Mohamed Morsi's election as the fifth President of Egypt, on 30 June 2012. This article documents the third wave of the Egyptian Crisis.
W"Vote for pimp" or "vote for the pimp" is a slogan that became popular during Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's election campaign, after he seized power in the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. The slogan opposed Sisi's campaign through mockery, and is based on a phrase coined during the British colonial period in Egypt.