Some young members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have recently formed a movement, called " Brotherhood without Violence," which denounces violence and calls for withdrawing confidence from the MB's top leader Mohamed Badie, according to the movement's coordinator Ahmed Yahya.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Wednesday, Yahya said the idea of the movement came up after ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi made his last televised statement, during which he rejected any compromise and repeated that he would pay his life and blood as "price for legitimacy."
"This attitude put the Brotherhood group on the brink, therefore we refused to take part in the pro-Morsi demonstrations and sit-ins," said Yahya.
On Monday early morning, some 50 people were killed and hundreds injured in deadly clashes between security forces and pro- Morsi protesters outside the Republican Guards House in Cairo, where Morsi is believed to be detained.
The tragedy came a couple of days after the group's general guide Badie delivered a zealous speech to the angry masses at Rabia al-Adawiya Square in Cairo, vowing to sacrifice for Morsi's return and denouncing the military procedures as "a coup."
"After the bloody incident, we decided to officially establish our movement, insisting on Badie's resignation or withdrawing confidence from him after his inciting speech that did not care to preserve the Egyptians' blood," Yahya said, noting the movement has just been established two days ago.
"The movement is getting popular," Yahya told Xinhua. "There are 500 youth MB members now in the movement and we are communicating with others."
"Most of the youth Brotherhood members suffer the same thing. The senior leaders push them toward protests and confrontations while they appear on TV and get high posts," Yahya continued.
The man said that the movement's members are not "dissidents" from the MB group so far, arguing that if Badie does not resign and give a chance to reformists, "we will announce our dissent from the MB and we will act in our own way as partners in the country."
"We temporarily revoked our pledge to show 'blind obedience' to the group's leader and we call for a fresh reformist leadership to run the group and rescue its declining popularity," said Yahya, noting that his movement seeks a positive change to the image of the Brotherhood that has recently lost a lot of supporters.
The young man said that the major flaw of the Brotherhood is its "policy of alienation."
"The alienation of others, the non-amendment of the group's 80- year-old internal regulations and the lack of youth leaders were among the flaws that led to Morsi's quick downfall," Yahya told Xinhua.
"If Morsi had responded to opposition calls for a coalition government, an early presidential election or a referendum, he would have spared the country a lot of turmoil," said Yahya.
Notably, the logo of the "Brotherhood without Violence" movement bears much resemblance to the one of the MB, with a slight but significant difference: although both logos have a green background and a picture of the Quran, the logo of the " Brotherhood without Violence" replaces the swords with olive branches and a flying dove with national flag as its wing, and also replaces the phrase "be prepared" with "fear God." Endi
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