A virtual media blackout accompanied the opening session of the trial of Mohamed Morsi on Monday 4 November. The dismissed president and 14 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders are being prosecuted on charges of incitement to murder and violence when mass demonstrations erupted in front of Al-Ittihadiya palace against the constitutional declaration Morsi issued on 21 November 2012. Unlike the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak, the Morsi trial was not aired live. Those present witnessed nothing similar to Mubarak trying to conceal his face from the cameras. They noted other differences too. Whereas Mubarak replied a curt, “Sir,” to acknowledge his presence when the court official called out his name, Morsi replied, “I am Dr Mohamed Morsi, the legitimate president of the country.” He entered the courtroom with firm strides whereas Mubarak was carried in on a stretcher. Even the clothes of the two defendants were different. Mubarak wore the white training suit allocated to those under precautionary detention. Morsi refused the garb and opted, instead, for a dark blue suit. Security was much tighter during the Morsi trial than at Mubarak's because expectations of violence were higher. Security forces were extensively deployed around and in the neighbourhood of the premises of the Morsi trial, the Police Academy in Al-Tagammu Al-Khamis in Cairo's northern suburb Nasr City. All roads in the vicinity of the building were closed with the exception of that leading to the main gate. Another difference between the two trials concerns the defence teams. Only seven members of Morsi's defence team were given permission to attend the session though 30 had asked to be admitted. Some international lawyers were refused permission to enter the courtroom. Mubarak was defended by lawyer Farid Al-Deeb and a team of attorneys from Kuwait were allowed to attend the trial. Perhaps the starkest contrast was to be found outside the courtroom. At Mubarak's trial a few hundred — mostly from a movement that called itself “We're sorry, Mr President” — assembled outside the police academy. Morsi's supporters gathered by thousands in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court and elsewhere. After entering the defendants' box the ousted president, according to press reports, waved to his Islamist supporters in the courtroom. He then turned to the judge and said, “What is happening now is a cover for the military coup.” He was also reported to have said, “I warn everyone of the consequences of this. The Egyptian judiciary should never demean itself by serving as a cover for the destructive, treacherous and legally criminal military coup.” He went on to caution everyone — “with complete affection” — against serving as a cover and warned that he would hold the court responsible if he was not released from his place of detention. He condemned “the coup” as a “crime and treachery” at which point prosecution lawyers and lawyers for the plaintiffs began to call for the death sentence for Morsi. Loud verbal altercations erupted between the two sides. Following the hearing Selim Al-Awwa, who heads Morsi's defence team, said Morsi was in good health and responding well to the charges levelled against him. Al-Awwa also promised that the next session would include “noticeable developments”. The Muslim Brotherhood website wrote that the ex-president had not signed any of the procedural documents for the trial because he refused to recognise the authority of the court. The site mentioned that Morsi was determined to defend himself. It also pointed out that all the defendants were in white jumpsuits apart from Morsi and Asaad Al-Sheikha, head of the former president's office. State television reported that the court was adjourned because of the din created as the defendants chanted against the court. “I am the legitimate president,” Morsi shouted repeatedly from the box. According to journalistic sources, Morsi told the judge, “You have no right to prosecute me. I am still your president. What happened in Egypt was a military coup. I do not approve the judges' participation in this coup. My presence in the court is under compulsion.” He then raised his hand in the well-known four-finger Rabaa Al-Adaweya salute and proclaimed, “Down with military rule.” The tribunal, which consisted of counsellor Ahmed Sabri Youssef, presiding, and judges Hussein Kandil and Ahmed Abul-Fottouh, cited two reasons for adjourning the session. The first was Morsi's refusal to wear the customary white uniform that all defendants in remand are obliged to wear. The second was the outbreak of quarrels between the defendants and lawyers for the prosecution and plaintiffs. The hearing was postponed to 8 January. Morsi was transferred to Borg Al-Arab prison in Alexandria where he was read the prison code, handed a white uniform and placed in a precautionary detention ward. Al-Ahram Weekly interviewed several demonstrators in front of the police academy. “What is happening in Egypt is not politics,” said one. “I am 46 and this was the first time I voted for a president only to find my dreams swept away by force. We are a people who suffer from diseases and a deteriorating economy. Morsi wanted to make a better life for us. This is why I reject this trial.” Some activists opposed to Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood rule were also in the vicinity. The venue of the trial was changed at the last moment. It had been reported that the trial would be held at the Police Officers Institute in Tura, near the southern suburb of Maadi. The Ministry of Interior insisted Tura had never been officially designated as the site for the trial and only journalistic conjecture suggested it would be. Away from the police academy the Muslim Brotherhood organised a demonstration in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court. Members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood posted pictures of ex-president Morsi and the stickers displaying the Rabaa hand sign on the walls of the nearby Maadi military hospital where Mubarak is confined. The number of demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court building was swelled when a march from Helwan joined them. Pro-Morsi demonstrations were staged elsewhere in the capital and across the country. By the end of the day skirmishes had erupted in some areas between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and their opponents. Other Islamist forces voiced their support for Morsi and the Brotherhood. The Nation Party, headed by Emad Abdel-Ghafour, claimed the trial violated constitutional articles relating to the prosecution of a president not only in the suspended 2012 constitution but in previous constitutions and in the constitutional declaration issued following Morsi's dismissal. The party's spokesman argued that protecting presidential palaces is the job of the Republican Guard and the police and that in front of Al-Ittihadiya palace there was obvious negligence in this respect. He added that the prosecution's refusal to allow the defence to copy case documents suggests the charges are no more than an attempt to defuse the political crisis by trying to silence domestic and international calls for the release of the legitimate president. In the eyes of the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi has become a symbol of the values the organisation has fought for and made many sacrifices over generations to achieve. The National Coalition to Support Legitimacy clearly sympathises with this perspective. In a statement it issued following the opening session of the trial the coalition praised “abducted president Mohamed Morsi” for his “steadfastness in the face of the coup-makers and the judges for the coup”, lauding “his commitment to legitimacy and the preservation of the will of the people”. The statement claimed that “president Morsi's rejection of the procedures of the invalid trail, his refusal to wear the uniform of prisoners in remand and the raising of his hand in the Rabaa salute increased his popularity which has become an international symbol of freedom and steadfastness and an icon of democracy that truly expresses the will of the people... By raising the Rabaa hand inside the courtroom president Morsi conveyed a message to the Egyptian people that they should continue to defend legitimacy and reject the bloody military coup... It is also a clear message from president Morsi not to compromise the blood of the martyrs that was shed in Rabaa Al-Adaweya, Nahda Square and other massacres perpetrated by the coup-makers against the rights of the Egyptian people.” The statement went on to declare that the procedures of the court were invalid and that prohibiting the hearing from being broadcast live and refusing to admit 24 members of the defence team along with journalists and media representatives apart from those that support the coup “exposes the coup-makers' terror of their approaching prosecution for the crimes they committed against this great people”. A spokesman for the coalition argued that the court's decision to postpone the case for two months confirms that government leaders are unable to find a justification that could convince the people of the necessity of this invalid trial. Some analysts believe that the circumstances surrounding the trial have worked in favour of the ex-president and increased his popularity, especially the reports that he had refused to wear the white prisoner's uniform and appeared self-confident while protesting his on-going legitimacy as president. Other analysts, however, say such behaviour confirms the extent to which Morsi is detached from reality.
