June 2013 Egyptian protests in the context of "2013 Egyptian coup"

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has been serving as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014.

After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and 2012 election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian presidency, the first democratic election in the history of the country, Sisi was appointed Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces in August 2012, replacing Hussein Tantawi. Following large scale protests against Morsi's presidency, Sisi led the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, overthrowing Morsi on 3 July 2013. Demonstrations and sit-ins organized by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian democracy followed.

Presidential elections were held in Egypt in 2012, with the first round on 23 and 24 May 2012 and the second on 16 and 17 June. They were the first democratic presidential elections in Egyptian history. The Muslim Brotherhood declared early 18 June 2012 that its candidate Mohamed Morsi had won, 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. He later faced massive protests for and against his rule, only to be ousted in a military coup in July the following year.

In the first round, with a voter turnout of 46%, vote-splitting between the major moderate or pro-democracy candidates created a center squeeze, leading to the elimination of Hamdeen Sabahi and Amr Moussa (the likely majority-preferred candidates) in the first round. The elections set the stage for the divisions that were to follow, along sharia and secular lines, and those opposed to and those supporting the former political elite. Islamist candidates Morsi and Fotouh won roughly 42% of the vote, while the remaining three secular candidates won 56% of the vote. Candidates Shafik and Moussa held positions under the Mubarak regime and won 35% of the vote, while Sabahi was a prominent dissident during the Sadat and Mubarak regimes.

Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-Ayyat (/ˈmɔːrsi/; Arabic: محمد محمد مرسي عيسى العياط, romanized: Muḥammad Muḥammad Mursī ʻĪsá alʻAyāṭ, IPA: [mæˈħæmmæd ˈmoɾsi ˈʕiːsæ (ʔe)l.ʕɑjˈjɑːtˤ]; 8 August 1951 – 17 June 2019) was an Egyptian politician, engineer, and professor who was the fifth president of Egypt from 2012 to 2013, when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him from office in a coup d'état after protests in June. Affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, Morsi led the Freedom and Justice Party from 2011 to 2012.

Morsi was born in El Adwah, Sharqia Governorate, before studying metallurgical engineering at Cairo University and then materials science at the University of Southern California. He became an associate professor at California State University, Northridge, from 1982 to 1985 before returning to Egypt to teach at Zagazig University. Associating with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was then barred from office under President Hosni Mubarak, Morsi stood as an independent candidate for the 2000 parliamentary election. Following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, which resulted in Mubarak's resignation, Morsi came to the forefront as head of the Freedom and Justice Party. It became the largest party in the 2011–12 parliamentary election and Morsi was elected president in the 2012 presidential election. On 30 June 2012, the SCAF handed the authority to Morsi, ending 6 decades of military rule.

The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat or the Counter-revolution is an event that took place on 3 July 2013. The Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected 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.

There were mixed international reactions to the events. Most Arab leaders were generally supportive or neutral, with the exception of Qatar and Tunisia who strongly condemned the military's actions. The US avoided describing the action as a coup. Other states either condemned or expressed concern over the removal of Morsi. Due to the regulations of the African Union regarding the interruption of constitutional rule by a member state, Egypt was suspended from that union. There has also been debate in the media regarding the labeling of these events. It has been described by some global media outlets as a coup or as a revolution. Egyptian State media outlets mainly referred to the ousting as a revolution, and this term was also favoured by a majority of the Egyptian public.

The 2012–2013 Egyptian protests (sometimes called the Hirak Uprising) were part of the crisis in Egypt including the June 2013 protests, the July 2013 coup d'état, and part of the post-coup unrest. They saw varying opposition against three contiguous heads of state; namely, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), Muslim Brotherhood, and the de facto ruling Egyptian Armed Forces.

Beginning with the anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution, small-scale protests took place in January demanding the military to step away from power. Those protests saw at least 7 protesters killed. Increasing violence, however, began in February 2012 with the massacre of Port Said, where 74 people (72 of which being Al-Ahly fans) were killed and hundred were injured by purported fans who were armed with knives, batons and swords, while the sparse security present stood idly. The lack of police intervention and alleged political involvement sparked a number of protests. Subsequent protests in March saw 1 killed after demands for the return of football matches for El Masry after the riots last month.

On 14 August 2013, the Egyptian police and to a lesser extent the armed forces, under the command of then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, used lethal force to clear two camps of protesters in Cairo. Estimates of those killed vary from 600 to 2,600. For six weeks, the two sites, at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and al-Nahda Square, had been occupied by supporters of President Mohamed Morsi, who had been overthrown by a military coup the prior month following mass protests against his rule. Initiatives to end the six-week sit-ins by peaceful means had failed. The camps were cleared out within hours.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the sit-in dispersals as crimes against humanity, and called them "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history", in reference to the numerous deaths that occurred.

Presidential elections were held in Egypt 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. The elections were marred by irregularities, repression of el-Sisi's political opponents, and suppression of free speech.

Before announcing his candidacy in the election, el-Sisi, who as Defence Minister also served as Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, was responsible for officially announcing the removal of president Mohamed Morsi from office in the aftermath of the June 2013 Egyptian protests. After Morsi's removal, Sisi installed a temporary interim government, but remained Egypt's Minister of Defence and assumed the role of the country's First Deputy Prime Minister. On 26 March 2014, he officially retired from the military, and announced that he would run as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election. The election, held between 26 and 28 May and which included only one opponent, was boycotted by some political parties, as well as many Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom & Justice Party, the Brotherhood itself having been previously declared a terrorist organization in December 2013.

Tamarod (Arabic: تمرد, romanized: tamarrud, "rebellion") was an Egyptian movement funded by the General Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) and UAE to overthrow the 1st democratically elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. The nominal aim was to register opposition to and force him to call early presidential elections. The goal was to collect 15 million signatures by 30 June 2013, the one-year anniversary of Morsi's inauguration. On 29 June 2013 the movement claimed to have collected more than 22 million signatures (22,134,460). A counter campaign was launched in support of Morsi's presidency which claimed to have collected 11 million signatures. The movement was planning to become a political party following the 2014 Egyptian presidential election.

The movement helped launch the June 2013 Egyptian protests which was part of the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état.