In the aftermath of the military coup in Egypt, defence minister General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi called for mass demonstrations on 26 July 2013, to grant his forces a "mandate" to crack down on "terrorism". While this announcement was rejected by Egyptian human rights groups and by many of the political movements that had initially supported the military coup, such as the revolutionary April 6 Youth Movement and the moderate Strong Egypt Party, Tamarod sided with General Sisi and called on their supporters to participate in the demonstrations. Mohamed Khamis, a leading Tamarod activist, said: "We support it, we will go out on the streets on Friday, and ask the army and the police to go and end this terrorism."