The Salafi Watan Party has criticised the chief of Egypt's army after he called for mass rallies on Friday to help the military face "violence and potential terrorism."
Watan Party vice president, Yossry Hammad, said on his Facebook page that the call, made by Defence Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, should be seen as a protest to incite more killing.
"Sisi does not need a mandate to kill Egyptians," he claimed.
“You do not need this mandate because you are already killing and detaining [people] every day," the Watan leader said. "But if the number of deaths and detainees are not yet satisfactory and you need a popular veneer for it, that is something else."
"Nobody will approve the killing of Egyptians and you will not have what you want. Just ask those who did the same thing for the last 60 years,” Hammad said, addressing Sisi himself.
"Please do not use the name of God to justify killing. Protesters will keep their peacefulness when the firing intensifies. But you are inviting a civil war and more hatred."
In a speech delivered on Wednesday, Sisi had called on Egyptians to take to the streets in huge numbers on Friday to give the armed forces a mandate to confront "violence and potential terrorism."
"I urge the people to take to the streets this coming Friday to prove their will and give me, the army and police, a mandate to confront possible violence and terrorism," he said during a speech at a military graduation ceremony.
"I swear by God that the Egyptian army is united," he added.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
