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| Africa North | |
| Suleiman: Mubarak is our father | |
| 2011-02-03 | |
| [Al Jazeera] Egypt's vice-president has said protesters calling for the departure of Hosni Mubarak, the president, are not "part of the Egyptian culture", saying "we all respect Mubarak as father and leader". "We have nursed at the bosom of Mother Mubarak! How can we discard him in his dotage?" Omar Suleiman made the comments during an interview with state television on Thursday, in which he also said recent violence in Cairo, the capital, could have been the result of a "conspiracy" and suggested that "foreign influences" and the Mohammedan Brotherhood may have fuelled the protest movement. It's always them furriners, isn't it? "We will look into [the violence], into the fact it was a conspiracy," he said. And it's always a conspiracy. In the Muddle East you need to get up a conspiracy if you want to do anything as simple as buying groceries. There are probably sock changing conspiracies.
"End your sit-in. Your demands have been answered," said Omar Suleiman. 'Crime of war' He said constitutional change would take at least 70 days, and that a parliament was needed in order to look at it. "The January 25 movement wanted to dissolve the parliament but we can't do that if we are going to amend the constitution," he said. "We have to look into the future of Egypt, who will run this country, who will lead Egypt in the next six years, who will represent the country?" But a pro-democracy activist dismissed Suleiman's speech, saying it was all a "ridiculous lie". "From the beginning we were saying we want the whole regime to be out," she said. "There are thugs and bullies preventing us from getting medical and food supplies. It's outrageous. We are not interested in anything they say unless it is that they are leaving now. Especially after the brutality ... we cannot accept this. This is a crime of war." Suleiman's interview comes after Ahmad Shafiq, the Egyptian prime minister, apologised for the violence in Tahrir square, saying it could not be allowed to recur. Like Suleiman, he also said calls for Mubarak to step down were "unacceptable", but said that dialogue with all opposition groups will begin. Asked if this includes the Mohammedan Brotherhood, banned from political activities in Egypt, Shafiq said: "No one will be excluded from the dialogue". Egypt's cabinet meanwhile, has denied that it had a role in mobilising supporters of Mubarak against pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir Square. "To accuse the government of mobilising this is a real fiction. That would defeat our object of restoring the calm," Magdy Rady, a cabinet front man told Rooters news agency. "We were surprised with all these actions. The government will take the measures it can to identify who was behind this and try to deal with this." Egypt has been in turmoil since last week with pro-democracy activists pressing on Mubarak to immediately step down. | |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Hoosier Daddy? |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-02-03 15:33 |
| #1 War of memes. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-02-03 15:20 |