The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy called a week of protests starting on Friday against "the presidential candidate supported by Zionists and Americans." "Egypt won't be an American state or a Zionist occupied state " said the group in a statement issued on Thursday, referring to military chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's expected presidential bid. The alliance, which supports ousted president Mohamed Morsi, also accused the current government in Egypt of opposing Palestinian resistance. Last Tuesday, a Cairo court imposed a temporary ban on all Hamas' activities in Egypt "We will continue our peaceful resistance in another revolutionary week of protests called ‘We will not be ruled by Zionists or Americans'" the statement said, adding that the Friday protests would be dedicated to Egyptian women to mark International Women's Day on 8 March. According to the alliance's statement this week's protests will adopt the cases of slain protesters and of those currently detained, as well as commemorating the dispersal of the pro-Morsi Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins. The statement also announced that photos of Field Marshal El-Sisi along with the flags of the United States, Israel and the UAE -- one of the Gulf states backing the current Egyptian government -- would be torched at the planned rallies. Since the ousting of Mohamed Morsi last July, the Muslim Brotherhood-led alliance has organised regular protests and rallies against the current authorities. A law passed in November renders protesting without prior permission from the interior ministry a crime. Egyptian-US relations were shaken after the ousting of Morsi last July, a move that the US did not support at first. The US held back deliveries of military hardware -- part of its long-entrenched aid programme for Egypt -- pending a democratic transition in the country, in one of the biggest signs of shaky relations. The US later shifted its stance, with President Barack Obama saying in a statement last October that "the interim government that replaced him [Morsi] responded to the desires of millions of Egyptians who believed the revolution had taken a wrong turn" but added "it too has made decisions that are inconsistent with inclusive democracy – through an emergency law, and restrictions on the press, civil society, and oppositional parties" Source : Ahram online
