000005 - Mohamed Morsi, Fifth President of Egypt

Mohamed Morsi (Arabic: محمد محمد مرسى عيسى العياط‎, ALA-LC: Muḥammad Muḥammad Mursī ‘Īsá al-‘Ayyāṭ) (b. August 20, 1951) is an Egyptian politician who served as the fifth president of Egypt, from June 30, 2012 to July 3, 2013, when he was removed by the military after mass protests. He is considered by most to be the first democratically elected head of state in Egyptian history. Although his predecessors also held elections, these were generally marred by irregularities and allegations of rigging. He was also the first president to have first assumed his duty after an election, as opposed to coming to power as revolutionaries (in the case of Gamal Abdel Nasser) or as appointed successors (Sadat, Mubarak).

Mohamed Morsi was educated in Egyptian public schools and universities. He was later granted a scholarship from the Egyptian government to prepare for a Ph.D. degree in the United States. Morsi was a Member of Parliament in the People's Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005, and a leading member in the Muslim Brotherhood. He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. He stood as the FJP's candidate for the May–June 2012 presidential election.

Morsi's victory in the presidential election was announced on June 24, 2012 after he won the run-off election winning 51.7 percent of the vote against Ahmed Shafik, deposed leader Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister.

As president, Morsi granted himself unlimited powers on the pretext that he would "protect" the nation from the Mubarak-era power structure, which he called "remnants of the old regime" (Arabic: فلول‎, ALA-LC: Foloul), and the power to legislate without judicial oversight or review of his acts. In late November, he issued an Islamist-backed draft constitution and called for a referendum, an act that his opponents called an "Islamist coup"." These issues, along with complaints of prosecutions of journalists and attacks on nonviolent demonstrators, brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets in the2012 Egyptian protests.

On June 30, 2013, mass protests erupted across Egypt which saw millions of protesters calling for the president's resignation. In response to the events, Morsi was given a 48 hour ultimatum by the military to meet the people's demands and to solve political differences or else they would intervene by implementing their own road map for the country and made it clear that they were not planning a coup.

Morsi was declared unseated on July 3, 2013 by a council consisting of defense minister Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, and Coptic Pope Tawadros II. The military suspended the constitution, and established a new administration headed by the chief justice, and initiated a "brutal" crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

On September 1, 2013, prosecutors referred Morsi to trial on charges of inciting deadly violence. The date was set for November 4, 2013 and he was being tried on charges of incitement of murder and violence.