Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa Al-Ayyat[note 1] (/ˈmɔːrsi/; Arabic: محمد محمد مرسي عيسى العياط IPA: [mæˈħæmmæd ˈmoɾsi ˈʕiːsæ (ʔe)l.ʕɑjˈjɑːtˤ]; 8 August 1951 – 17 June 2019) was an Egyptian politician, engineer, and professor who was the fifth president of Egypt,[1] from 2012 to 2013, when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him from office in a coup d'état after protests in June.
Associating with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was then barred from office under President Hosni Mubarak, Morsi stood as an independent candidate for the 2000 parliamentary election.
Egyptian prosecutors then charged Morsi with various crimes and sought the death penalty, a move denounced by Amnesty International as "a charade based on null and void procedures".
[14][15] Mohamed Morsi was born in the Sharqia Governorate, in northern Egypt, of modest provincial origin, in the village of El Adwah, north of Cairo, on 8 August 1951 during the final years of the Egyptian monarchy.
[41] Morsi supporters in Cairo's Tahrir Square celebrated, and angry outbursts occurred at the Egypt Election Authorities press conference when the result was announced.
[42] From the initial round of voting on 23 and 24 May 2012, Morsi had attempted to appeal to political liberals and minorities while portraying his rival Ahmed Shafik as a holdover from the Mubarak-era of secular moderation.
According to the online newspaper Egypt Independent, an English-language subsidiary of Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, Okasha spent three hours on 27 May 2012 criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi on air.
[48] I hope the people will choose me, an Islamist candidate from the Freedom & Justice party and Muslim Brotherhood, and God willing the system will move towards stability and development.
[61] In a speech to supporters in Cairo's Tahrir Square on 30 June 2012, Morsi briefly mentioned that he would work to free Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, along with the many Egyptians who were arrested during the revolution.
[70] On 12 August 2012, Morsi asked Mohamad Hussein Tantawi, head of the country's armed forces, and Sami Hafez Anan, the Army chief of staff, to resign.
[80] Although the project did not proceed under Morsi, his successor Abdel Fattah el-Sisi revived and launched a streamlined version of the corridor with an expansion of the Suez Canal in August 2014.
[81] On 19 October 2012, Morsi travelled to Egypt's northwestern Matrouh in his first official visit to deliver a speech on Egyptian unity at el-Tenaim Mosque.
Immediately before his speech, he participated in prayers there where he openly mouthed "Amen" as cleric Futouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour, the local head of religious endowment, declared, "Deal with the Jews and their supporters.
Liberal and secular groups walked out of the constitutional Constituent Assembly because they believed that it would impose strict Islamic practices, while members of the Muslim Brotherhood supported Morsi.
[97] Though the declaration's language had not been altered, Morsi agreed to limit the scope of the decree to "sovereign matters" following four days of opposition protests and the resignation of several senior advisers.
[107][108] Morsi bestowed upon Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Order of the Nile, which is Egypt's most prestigious state award.
"[116] Morsi, who announced at the rally that his government had expelled Syria's ambassador and closed the Syrian embassy in Cairo, called for international intervention on behalf of the opposition forces in the effect of an establishment of a no-fly zone.
"[134] In September 2010, calling the Israelis "blood-suckers", "warmongers" and "descendants of apes and pigs", Morsi said "These futile [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations are a waste of time and opportunities.
[141][dead link][142] Morsi attended the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa from 15 to 16 July 2012; this was the first visit to Ethiopia by a sitting President of Egypt in the 17 years since the attempted assassination of Hosni Mubarak in June 1995.
On 2 July, President Morsi publicly rejected the Egyptian Army's 48-hour ultimatum and vowed to pursue his own plans for national reconciliation and resolving the political crisis.
[155] At noon, the Republican Guard, who had Morsi in their care, left his side to allow Army commandos to take him to an undisclosed Ministry of Defence building.
[161] After his overthrow, Morsi faced several charges including inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace, espionage for foreign militant groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for escaping Wadi el-Natroun Prison during the 2011 revolution before his election as president, leaking classified documents to Qatar, in addition to "insulting the judiciary.
According to the Prosecutor General's investigations, the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, aided by Hezbollah and Hamas, is the reason behind violence inside Egypt.
[170] On 29 January 2014, Morsi faced trial for the second time on the charge of breaking out of jail during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, after conspiring with foreign militant groups, including Hamas, to spread violent chaos throughout Egypt.
[173][174][175] In April 2015, the court convicted Morsi, along with 12 other defendants, including former MP Mohamed Beltagy, for the arrest and torture of protesters and incitement to violence.
The same court was to review two other charges against Morsi for his role in the January 2011 prison break, as well as for allegedly providing classified information to the government of Qatar.
[183] Based on the testimonies of Morsi's family and others informed of his condition, the panel noted that he received inadequate medical care for diabetes, called his treatment "cruel, inhuman and degrading" and said it could "meet the threshold for torture in accordance [with] Egyptian and international law".
[186] Egyptian state television announced on 17 June 2019 that Morsi had collapsed during a court hearing on espionage charges at Cairo's Tora Prison complex, and later died suddenly, reportedly of a heart attack.
[196] The Turkish government's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) opened the orphanage in Idlib's Mashhad Rouhin district, together with Ozgur-Deir and Fetihder Associations.
[199] Morsi had five children:[200] Ahmed Mohammed Morsi, who is a physician in Saudi Arabia; Shaima, a graduate of Zagazig University; Osama, an attorney; Omar who holds a bachelor in commerce from Zagazig University; and Abdullah,[201] who was said to have died from a heart attack while driving his car on 4 September 2019, but his lawyers said on 7 September 2020 that he was killed after being injected with a lethal substance.