Tamarod ( ar, تـمـرد, tamarrud, "rebellion") was an Egyptian

grassroots movement A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

that was founded to register opposition to President

Mohamed Morsi Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012inauguration. On 29 June 2013 the movement claimed to have collected more than 22 million signatures (22,134,460). A counter campaign was launched in support of Morsi's presidency which claimed to have collected 11 million signatures. The movement was planning to become a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

following the

2014 Egyptian presidential election Presidential elections were held in Egypt between 26 and 28 May 2014. There were only two candidates, former Egyptian List of Ministers of Defence of Egypt, defence minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Egyptian Popular Current candidate Hamdeen Sab ...

. The movement helped launch the

June 2013 Egyptian protests The 30 June protests occurred in Egypt on 30 June 2013, marking the one-year anniversary of Mohamed Morsi's inauguration as president. The events ended with the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état after mass protests across Egypt demanding the immediat ...

which preceded the

2013 Egyptian coup d'état The 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat took place on 3 July 2013. Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coalition to remove the democratically elected President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from power and suspended the Egyptian constitu ...

History

The Rebel movement was founded by five activists, including its official spokesman Mahmoud Badr, on 28 April 2013. An opposition group within the organization -- initially named Tamarod 2 Get Liberated -- argued that Tamarod was only able to collect 8.5 million signatures and that some of its founders were trained by security services. A report by

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

alleged that police officers and officials from the

Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministr ...

signed and helped distribute and collect signatures for the petition, as well as attending demonstrations themselves. Members of the movement stated that they would support appointing Maher el-Beheiry, the former head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, to temporarily replace Morsi if he were to step down. The movement gave Morsi until 2 July 2013 to step down; if he did not step down, a civil disobedience campaign was to be initiated. On 2 July 2013, the Salafist Call and its political wing, the

Salafist The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...

Nour Party ) , foundation = , newspaper = The New Light , headquarters = 601 Horrya Way, Zezenia, Alexandria , ideology = SalafismIslamismWahhabismMadkhalism , position = Far-right , colours = Blue, red, wh ...

, stated that it had three main demands: a snap presidential poll should take place, a

technocratic Technocracy is a form of government in which the decision-maker or makers are selected based on their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts wi ...

government should be formed and a committee should be formed to examine constitutional amendments. The Egyptian armed forces gave both sides until 3 July 2013 to defuse the crisis. At that point, the armed forces said it would offer a "road map", though they stated that they would not get involved in politics or the government. Subsequently, the armed forces removed Morsi and replaced him with Adly Mahmoud Mansour, who had recently succeeded Maher el-Beheiry as head of the Supreme Constitutional Court.

Supporters of Tamarod

Among the political forces that initially announced support for the Rebel movement were Shayfeencom, the Kefaya Movement, the National Salvation Front and the

April 6 Youth Movement The April 6 Youth Movement ( ar, حركة شباب 6 أبريل) is an Egyptian activist group established in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on 6 April. Activists calle ...

. Nabil Na'eem, a former leader of

Egyptian Islamic Jihad The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...

, stated that he would take part in the protests. The

Strong Egypt Party The Strong Egypt Party ( ar-at, حزب مصر القوية, Hizb Misr al-Qawia) is an Egyptian centrist political party founded in 2012 by former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. History The Strong Egypt Party was established i ...

stated that it supported the movement and called for early presidential elections. The movement also accepted an endorsement by

Ahmed Shafik Ahmed Mohamed Shafik ZakiAlso spelled: ''Shafiq''. ( ar, أحمد محمد شفيق زكى, ; born 25 November 1941) is an Egyptian politician and former presidential candidate. He was a senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and later ser ...

Mohamed El Baradei Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei ( ar, محمد مصطفى البرادعي, Muḥammad Muṣṭafá al-Barādaʿī, ; born 17 June 1942) is an Egyptian law scholar and diplomat who served as the vice president of Egypt on an interim basis from 14 July ...

, one of the leaders of the National Salvation Front, stated that former members of the National Democratic Party would be welcomed as long as they were not convicted of any crimes.

Opposition to Tamarod

Supporters of President Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations launched two campaigns called ''Mu'ayyed'' (supporter) and ''Tagarrod'' (impartiality) in response to the Rebel movement petitions and started collecting signatures to support the continuation of Morsi's rule. The ''Tagarrod'' campaign stated that it had 11 million signatures by 20 June 2013. Some Morsi supporters criticised the Rebel movement by claiming that it is "a manipulation of the will of the people and only serves counter-revolutionary forces supported by the remnants of the

Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in t ...

regime".

Role following the military coup

The Tamarod campaign strongly supported the military's toppling of Morsi, the military transition government, the security force raids that involved the killing of hundreds of Brotherhood members and the jailing of thousands of rank and file. Mahmoud Badr and another Tamarod founder, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, were appointed to the post-coup fifty-member committee redrafting Egypt's Constitution. In the aftermath of the

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

in Egypt, defence minister General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi called for mass demonstrations on 26 July 2013, to grant his forces a "mandate" to crack down on "terrorism". While this announcement was rejected by Egyptian

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

groups and by many of the political movements that had initially supported the military coup, such as the revolutionary

and the moderate

, Tamarod sided with General Sisi and called on their supporters to participate in the demonstrations. Mohamed Khamis, a leading Tamarod activist, said: "We support it, we will go out on the streets on Friday, and ask the army and the police to go and end this terrorism." On 14 August 2013, following the

August 2013 Rabaa massacre On 14 August 2013, the Egyptian police and armed forces under the command of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi raided two camps of protesters in Cairo: one at al-Nahda Square and a larger one at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. The two sites had been occup ...

by security forces of supporters of deposed president

Mohamed Morsi Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012 Mohamed ElBaradei Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei ( ar, محمد مصطفى البرادعي, Muḥammad Muṣṭafá al-Barādaʿī, ; born 17 June 1942) is an Egyptian law scholar and diplomat who served as the vice president of Egypt on an interim basis from 14 July ...

for his decision to resign in protest against the crackdown. On 15 August, Tamarod released a statement on state television calling on all Egyptians to form neighbourhood watches, in anticipation of plans by supporters of former president

Mohamed Morsi Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012National Salvation Front, it was rejected by the

and by the

, which called it irresponsible and warned that it could lead towards civil war. Tamarod's indiscriminate support for the Egyptian military has been criticised by some liberal activists and media, with

Mada Masr ''Mada Masr'' ( ar, مدى مصر) is an independent Egyptian online newspaper, founded in June 2013 by former journalists of the English-language newspaper ''Egypt Independent'' following the shutting down of its editorial operations in April 20 ...

's Sarah Carr calling them the "Tamarod (Rebel) battalion of the Egyptian army". Tamarod has also supported the police. On 8 October 2013, the group announced that it would run in the 2015 parliamentary election. Tamarod formed and tried to officially register a political party called the Arabic Popular Movement. In early 2014, some leaders of the movement broke away and formed a splinter group, known as Tamarud 2 Get Liberated, in response to the authoritarianism of the post-coup military backed government. Members of the breakaway faction have claimed that some of the founders of the Tamarod movement were agents of state security forces. The organization, named Taharor, has stated that it believes that the Tamarod movement ignores police brutality. The group was critical of the

following the banning of the youth movement; Tamarod spokesman Mohamed Nabawy stated that the ruling of the Egyptian judiciary was based on "evidence".

Campaign against the US

Following efforts by the US administration to mediate reconciliation between the post-coup government and the Muslim Brotherhood and Western criticism of the violent dispersal of sit-ins by supporters of deposed president Morsi, Tamarod sharply criticised the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

President Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

. In an interview, Tamarod co-founder Mahmoud Badr said: "I tell you, President Obama, why don't you and your small, meaningless aid go to hell?" Tamarod launched a campaign to refuse US aid in all its forms and to cancel the peace agreement "between Egypt and the Israeli entity" and called for rallies in support of the Egyptian government against "foreign intervention." In August 2013, Tamarod expressed its anti-US attitude by choosing the picture of a burning

American flag The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the ca ...

as cover photo of its

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page.

Support for the Syrian government

In August 2013, when several Western countries were discussing military strikes against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad following an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Ghouta region on 21 August, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, Tamarod released a statement saying that "it is a national duty to support the Syrian army" and denounced "people who betray their country". In the statement, Tamarod also called on the Egyptian government to close the Suez Canal to any vessel supporting military action against Syria.

References

External links

Official website
{{Egyptian Revolution of 2011 2013 Egyptian coup d'état Organisations of the Egyptian Crisis (2011–2014) Nonviolent resistance movements 2013 establishments in Egypt Political parties established in 2013