CAIRO: As Islamists from across Egypt converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square calling for an Islamic state to be implemented in the country, former Arab League Secretary General and presidential hopeful Amr Moussa said that Egypt was a “civil state.” Moussa said that the country is a civil state that “respects all its citizens regardless of religion, gender, ethnicity, or opinion.” Moussa called on all political groups in Egypt to express their views freely “without fear and to meet together to protect the Egypt's direction towards a secure future and to fight sectarian extremism.” The candidate also called for the military to create a timetable of specific dates for the parliamentary and presidential elections as well as drafting a new constitution. He also called on the protesters, both Islamists and secularists, to create a better dialogue in order to create a unified vision for the direction of post-revolution Egypt. “Yes, the revolution is responsible for toppling the former regime but there are millions of other Egyptians who must be taken into account, or else this will not be a true democracy,” Moussa said. BM
