“Sisi is a Killer”

Abstract The first year of the counterrevolution under interim President Adly Mansour is covered in chapter 6. In contrast to the period of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, when men in uniform ruled Egypt, after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi the authorities created a semblance of civilian rule, installing a civilian interim president, a civilian vice president, and a civilian prime minister. Nonetheless, there was no civilian control of the armed forces. The goal during the first wave of the counterrevolution was not only to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood from politics but also to crush any group that could mobilize for street protests, regardless of ideology. It was the bloodiest period in modern Egyptian history. After carrying out numerous massacres of the Muslim Brotherhood, the state turned to secular and independent activists next. The Protest Law passed in November 2013 essentially criminalized even small and entirely peaceful protests. The regime was slowly able to regain control of the streets and university campuses. The nature of the coup determined the nature of the crackdown: precisely because it was a “coup from below,” characterized by mass protests that reached deep and wide into Egyptian society, the crackdown had to reach this extent as well.