They have been jailed and tortured, hunted in the streets and blacklisted from public life. But a year after winning the presidency and reaching the pinnacle of their 80-year quest for power, Egypt’s Islamists again face an existential threat.
President Mohamed Morsi was yesterday fighting back against what his supporters have dubbed a military coup d’état against his democratically elected government. This time, the president’s Muslim Brotherhood and his millions of supporters made clear, they were not about to give up.
“If the military takes any street action we will stand in front of the tanks,” vowed Gehad Haddad, an official in Mr Morsi’s Freedom and Justice party.