El Mahalla El Kubra living conditions. Beginning in April 2008 the city held mass demonstrations protesting the election results of President Hosni Mubarak, claiming election fraud and demanding better wages. Security forces were ordered to crack down on the dissidents, and in May they killed two or three in the city and injured dozens. Images of protesters in Mahalla overturning billboards of Mubarak were viewed by some Egyptians as a turning point in Egyptian politics, according to "The Washington Post". "The Observer" has written that protests in El Mahalla from 2006 to 2011 spearheaded larger political changes throughout Egypt. A Facebook group established by
Muslim Brotherhood in post-Mubarak electoral politics of Egypt Morsi's first anniversary in office (June 2013). The demonstrators demanded his resignation or removal. Morsi refused to step down, but his elected government was overthrown in a military coup led by the Minister of Defense General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi on July 3, 2013. After weeks of tense pro-Morsi sit-in demonstrations in Cairo, a state of emergency was declared and the new regime's security forces violently dispersed the protestors on August 14. During the long-lasting presidency of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood went through different stages of social and political development and activity, becoming a formal participant in the political process,