Cameron: let democracy flourish in Egypt

David Cameron today called for democracy to be allowed to flourish in Egypt — hours after its first freely-elected president was toppled in a military coup.

The Prime Minister issued his appeal to Egypt’s new leaders as deposed president Mohamed Morsi was being detained by security forces and arrest warrants issued for 300 members of his Muslim Brotherhood.

Senior figures were being rounded up, with some held in the same Cairo jail as Morsi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. Prosecutors were also reported to have ordered the arrest of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, and his powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater over the killings of eight protesters in clashes outside the group’s Cairo headquarters.

Britain responded to the crackdown by calling for political prisoners to be freed as soon as possible so they could be involved in early elections. But as military chiefs installed an interim president, the West was torn between condemning the army’s intervention or working with the new regime after the revolt against Islamist leader Morsi.

Grappling with the moral dilemma, Mr Cameron said: “We never support intervention by the military. What now needs to happen in Egypt is for democracy to flourish and for a genuine democratic transition to take place and all parties need to be involved in that.”

Adli Mansour, head judge of the Constitutional Court, was made president as millions of Egyptians celebrated Mr Morsi’s downfall. Mr Mansour immediately promised new elections but without setting a date.

He hailed the public uprising against Mr Morsi, with mass protests across Egypt, as having “corrected the path of its glorious revolution”. The judge invited the Muslim Brotherhood to “share in building the nation”, saying the revolution must continue so “we stop producing tyrants”.

Mohamed El Baradei, 71, an English-speaking former UN nuclear agency chief, is favourite to head a transitional government. But while the new administration was being presented as a civilian government, the power of the military remained clear with Egypt’s air force flying over Cairo minutes before the interim leader was sworn in.

The whereabouts of Mr Morsi were unclear with reports that he had been moved from house arrest to the defence ministry. Troops and armoured vehicles were deployed on the capital’s streets to combat any violent response from his supporters.

Clashes erupted in several provincial cities when Islamists opened fire on police, with at least nine people killed, said security officials, taking the death toll since Sunday to at least 50.