The Revolutionary Youth Coalition (RYC) announced that they will join mass demonstrations initiated by April 6 Youth Movement on 20 April dubbing it "Self Determination Friday", in a press statement Thursday. The youth group added they will not be joining the Muslim Brotherhood protest which is set to take place a week before on 13 Friday.
The statement called on Egyptians to retake Tahrir Square and to stage protests in Egypt's major cities against the candidacy of former regime figures in the upcoming presidential elections and Article 28 of the military-authored Constitutional Declaration.
The Article states that the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) is not subject to judicial authority.
This means the body tasked with supervising the elections is not legally obliged to obey any court ruling and is solely responsible for its decisions, including the elimination of presidential candidates.
The statement also called for people to protest against the criteria set for choosing the Constituent Assembly, arguing it should be representative of the whole nation and not Parliament's majority alone.
The formation of the assembly, which sees half the seats elected from the Islamist dominated People's Assembly and the Shura Council and half by non-parliamentarians, has been questioned in a recent court case. Several prominent lawyerssuccessfully challenged the process of forming the assembly tasked with authoring Egypt's constitution, arguing that parliamentarians cannot elect themselves according to a 1994 SCC ruling.
The RYC also stated they will not be joining the Brotherhood's 13 Friday protest, as they refuse to be a part of "a conflict of interest" or political one-upmanship "before the completion of the revolution and the achievement of its goals."
The Brotherhood, the RYC added, should remember the times they "abandoned the youth and the revolution" saying that now is the time for revolutionary groups to abandon them.
Friday's planned demonstration was called for by the Muslim Brotherhood on its official website Ikhwanonline.com Wednesday, in protest of what it perceived to be attempts to derail Egypt's revolution and to return key figures from the Mubarak regime to power.
The Brotherhood's Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein said in thestatement that the Islamist group would be holding a million-man demonstration in Tahrir, Cairo's central flashpoint square, with the aim of "protecting the revolution."
