Obama Admin Discourages Anti-Morsi Protests

As Egyptians prepare for what are expected to be the most violent protests against Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, the United States has taken a “skeptical” stance toward the anti-government demonstrators.

Anti-Morsi protesters have accused the Obama administration of favoring the Morsi-led government. The Huffington Post reported last Friday that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson criticized this weekend’s anti-Morsi protest saying, she was “deeply skeptical” of them:

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, who has repeatedly been accused by the opposition of bias in favor of Morsi, caused outrage this week when she said she was “deeply skeptical” the protests will be fruitful and defended U.S. relations with Morsi and his Brotherhood as necessary because the group is part of the democratically elected Egyptian government.

“Some say that street action will produce better results than elections. To be honest, my government and I are deeply skeptical,” she said at a seminar Tuesday organized by a Cairo research center. “Egypt needs stability to get its economic house in order, and more violence on the streets will do little more than add new names to the lists of martyrs.”

FrontPageMag.com notes that in the  June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad, Patterson asked the Coptic Church’s Pope Tawadros, “to urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations against Morsi and the Brotherhood. Coptic. Egyptian Christians, who are just 10 percent of the country’s 85 million people, have long been persecuted in Egypt, but violent attacks against Christians have risen sharply since Morsi came to power in 2011.

Egyptian demonstrators claim to have collected 15 million signatures against Morsi, Voice of America reports. The “Rebel” movement aims to force an early presidential election if Morsi will not resign. 

Tensions are rising, as counter-demonstrations from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood among others are expected to surface on Sunday as well. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo posted a security message late Wednesday night cautioning Americans in the country that the embassy would be closed on Sunday.

Some of Morsi’s supporters promised to “smash” the anti-government protesters, while others said the protesters were infidels who should be killed, CBS News reported. Egypt’s army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi warned the military is prepared to intervene to halt the country from entering a “dark tunnel” of internal conflict.