The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Anti-Coup Youth group called for a Tuesday evening protest in Downtown Cairo's Talaat Harb Square against the removal of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
The organisers of the protest, scheduled to take place one kilometre away from the iconic Tahrir Square, are urging each participant to bring in five family members to the event.
According to Ahram Online’s reporter, extensive police special and central security forces are being additionally deployed around the vicinity of Talaat Harb Square. Following president Morsi's ouster, army forces were deployed around Tahrir Square to prevent its occupation by Brotherhood supporters, as the iconic square was the customary location of anti-Morsi protests.
Meanwhile, the National Alliance to Support Legitimacy also called for demonstrations on Tuesday under the banner "Support the Dignity and Freedom of Egyptian Women” in protest of what it calls anti-women policies by the interim government.
The alliance said in a statement late on Monday that the interim government has “killed and arrested” women who “peacefully opposed the coup”.
“Why are the National Council for Women and rights organisations silent? Why are they using double standards in defending women’s rights?” the statement read, “Let this day be one of gratitude and appreciation to the millions of women who peacefully stood side by side with men [in protests].”
Women did indeed participate in the Brotherhood-led alliance's demonstrations and protest camps to support deposed president Mohamed Morsi and demand his reinstatement following his ouster on 3 July.
The rallies intensified after the deadly crackdown on 14 August by police forces on their six-week-long protest camps in Cairo’s Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Giza’s Al-Nahda squares. The dispersal left at least 600 people dead, according to Ministry of Health figures.
While a number of demonstrations were since held across Egypt – in the capital, in several Nile Delta cities, in Ismailia by the Suez Canal, and in Upper Egypt’s Assiut – the numbers of pro-Morsi protesters seem to have significantly dwindled compared to previous weeks. Some analysts attribute the cause of the plummeting quantity of protesters to the large number of arrested Brotherhood leaders.
Since the dispersal of the Islamists protest camps, several Brotherhood leaders and partisans have been arrested. Those behind bars include deposed president Morsi, held incommunicado since his ouster, the group’s supreme guide and spiritual leader Mohamed Badie, and second-in-command Khairat El-Shater. All are facing related charges of inciting violence.
