What started as one youth movement among many to express opposition to Muslim Brotherhood rule, Tamarod (Rebellion) has turned into a big hit, appealing to all segments of society, rich and poor, young and old. In a five-star hotel leading intellectuals, actors and actresses gathered on Monday to sign in front of cameras the now famous Tamarod petition that states that President Mohamed Morsi, longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has failed to fulfil any of the key demands of the 25 January 2011 Revolution — bread, freedom, social justice and human dignity — or keep any of the promises he made in his election campaign, to improve security, the economy and behave as a president for all Egyptians. Morsi won the second round of presidential election a year ago with 13 million votes. Tamarod's organisers have set a target of 15 million signatures for their petition, and hope to reach it by 30 June, the first anniversary of Morsi's election. This, they say, will be enough to deprive the president of the legitimacy of the ballot box and force him to resign. While members of the movement recognise there may be no legal grounds for their peaceful demands they hope their efforts will be sufficient to mobilise major demonstrations demanding early elections across Egypt on 30 June. As well-known figures gathered at the hotel to sign the petition over 6,000 Tamarod volunteers were at work in the less glamorous surroundings of the poor Cairene district Boulaq Al-Dakrour, and dozens of other districts like it across Egypt's governorates, collecting signatures and National Identity Card numbers from residents walking in the streets or sitting at coffee shops. A few cars parked on the side of the street, their drivers chasing the young men and women carrying the Tamarod petitions in order to sign: it has become a common scene in Cairo's streets. “This is the most peaceful way I have found to express my opposition to what President Morsi and the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] are doing to our country,” says 40-year-old housewife Fatma Mohamed. “Everything is getting worse. Inflation is growing, there are no jobs, power cuts are common, there is bloodshed because of infighting among Egyptians, chaos in Sinai, and Ethiopia is threatening to cut our share of Nile water. Yet the only things Morsi cares about are the fortunes of the Ikhwan.” A peaceful act of resistance expressing dissatisfaction with Brotherhood rule, led by young men and women who are clearly sincere and who were involved in the revolution against president Hosni Mubarak more than two years ago: it is proving an appealing combination. When the movement started collecting signatures on 1 May it was working out of an extremely small office donated by a leftist journalist in the mixed Cairene neighbourhood of Abdine. Most traditional political parties, including those gathered under the umbrella of the National Salvation Front (NSF), disregarded the new campaign initially. It was, they supposed, just one more initiative to express opposition to Morsi. That opinion was to shift decisively on 13 May when Mahmoud Badr, Tamarod's official spokesman, announced that two million signatures had been collected in 10 days. Suddenly talk of the petition was on everyone's lips, and parties that initially questioned the seriousness of the initiative were scrambling to offer support. NSF parties, liberal, leftist and nationalist, announced two weeks ago that they would open their offices to receive the petitions and then hand them over to the main campaign office in Cairo. Tamarod initially called upon supporters to help by photocopying or printing the petition: now, says Tamarod organiser Hassan Shahine, they now have more than enough copies. People are photocopying the petition themselves and circulating it among family members, friends and neighbours so that “the real challenge we face is how to collect the petitions in one place, organise them, and ensure the accuracy of the information.” In this respect, says Shahine, they have received valuable help from the National Association for Change, the political group formed in the last years of Mubarak's rule to campaign against the ousted president's plan to hand over power to his son, Gamal. The National Association for Change managed to collect just over one million signatures against Mubarak. By 29 May Tamarod's Badr announced in a news conference that their own tally had exceeded seven million, nearly half of the targeted figure. In a telephone interview on Tuesday Shahine told Al-Ahram Weekly that he believed the figure now exceeded nine million as the group's central office continues to receive signatures from all over Egypt. “Today we Egyptians are saying goodbye to Morsi,” said Badr. “I don't recognise him as president. He lost his legitimacy the minute young people died in confrontations with police against his rule.” Badr was referring to the clashes that occurred in front of the presidential palace in Heliopolis between December and February which left several prominent youth activists dead, including Mohamed Al-Guindi, Mohamed Hussein (aka Kristi), Amr Saad, journalist Al-Hussein Abu Deif, and 17-year-old member of the Dostour Party Mohamed Gaber, known as Jeeka. “We are telling the president if you are confident of your popularity hold early presidential elections. By 30 June we will have 15 million Egyptians and more telling you that you are unfit to rule the country,” Badr told a cheering crowd. Cairo, Menoufiya and Qalioubiya have topped the signature lists with more than one million signing in each governorate. Upper Egypt, a traditional stronghold of political Islamic groups, has seen the lowest participation. Generally speaking, the pattern of signatures has followed voting patterns in the last presidential elections and in the much lower turnout for the referendum on the Brotherhood drafted constitution. While Tamarod's first news conference was held in a suffocating apartment and was attended only by journalists the 29 May gathering at a spacious auditorium saw many opposition figures arriving to express solidarity. Young volunteers sat beneath the main podium chanting slogans against President Morsi and the man whom many think is the actual leader of Egypt nowadays, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie. A counter campaign Tagarod (Impartiality), led by political Islamic groups in support of Morsi, has been launched. Its leader Assem Abdel-Maged, a former leader of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, claims to have gathered two million signatures. “We are confident we will get 20 million signatures,” he said in a news conference on Sunday. Abdel-Maged denied claims that his movement supported violence, even though Tagarod's logo is a Victory sign made up of small machine guns. He said the machine guns were “a sign of readiness to exert all sorts of effort, including our blood, to protect stability and legitimacy”. Tagarod, he insisted, aimed not to support Morsi per se, “but to confirm the will of the Egyptian people expressed at the ballot box”. Morsi, he added, “has to be allowed to complete his four-year term.” Badr has accused members of the Brotherhood, and in some cases the police, of harassing, and on occasion physically attacking, members of Tamarod as they go about collecting signatures for their anti-Morsi petition. On Monday the Free Egyptians Party said unidentified men raided its office in Daher, Cairo, and stole nearly 30,000 copies of the Tamarod petition. On the same day Tamarod reported on its website that one of its members disappeared while travelling from Assiut to deliver more than 20,000 petitions to the main office in Cairo. A complaint has been filed with the police. On Monday Tamarod faced its most serious legal challenge to date when Morsi appointed Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdallah announced that he was referring complaints received from Morsi's supporters against Badr, other Tamarod leaders, Dostour Party leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed Al-Baradei, Nasserist Popular Trend leader Al-Tayar Al-Shaabi and former presidential candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, to the State Security prosecutor. According to Abdallah, they have been accused of conspiring to overthrow the president, insulting Morsi and spreading chaos and false information. The State Security prosecutor had not announced any decisions in the referral, or arrest warrants, as Al-Ahram Weekly went to press.
