Egypt's Tahrir Square dream fades as Sisi builds power --- (Reuters) - In a courthouse near Cairo, a peremptory message hangs above the judge presiding over one of a series of trials involving Egypt's briefly powerful and now almost impotent Muslim Brotherhood. -- "In the name of God the Merciful", it reads, "Allah commands you to render trust to whom it is due, and when you judge between people to judge with justice". -- The chaotic scenes in the court do not appear to measure up. -- A metal cage held 33 members of the Brotherhood - outlawed as a terrorist organization after the army last July deposed Mohamed Mursi, the elected president who ruled in the Brotherhood's name for one tumultuous year. -- Among them was Mohamed Badie, supreme guide of the Brotherhood. It is the most influential mainstream Islamist organization in the world and its confrontation with the army-backed authorities in Cairo has created a country more divided than at any time since the group was founded in Egypt in 1928. -- Dressed in white robes and facing a string of charges, some of which carry the death penalty, the Brothers kept up a barrage of chants, from Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) to "Down, down with military rule". -- The judge, heavily moustached and wearing black sunglasses, looked bored as he scornfully dismissed pleas from lawyers asking for more respectful treatment of their clients. -- The judge brusquely ordered defendants and lawyers to be shut up. Scuffles broke out. A phalanx of policemen separated the caged Brothers from lawyers and journalists. -- Badie then rose to proclaim that "the people will not accept an army tyrant", referring to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who carried out last July's coup after mass protests against the divisive Mursi and who recently resigned from the military to contest a presidential election on May 26-27. -- Before the curtain came down on this judicial mayhem, the Brotherhood's spiritual leader forecast the inevitable demise of Sisi, despite forecasts that he will win next month's election. --- It was thought scenes like this had been brought to an end when President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in the 2011 Tahrir Square revolt. But now history seems to be repeating itself, with the army bent on eradicating the Islamists militarily. -- Mubarak's army-backed dictatorship, the continuation of a police state established by Gamal Abdel Nasser with the ousting of the monarchy in 1952, had faced down an Islamist insurgency that targeted him, his ministers and tourists in the 1990s. --- In 30 years of Mubarak rule, military tribunals with scant respect for civil law sentenced 90 Islamist militants to death, of whom 68 were executed. In nine months of Sisi's army-led government, courts have condemned 529 Islamists to death. -- Nor was Egypt so polarized then as it is now. Over 1,000 Mursi supporters were shot dead after last July's coup, and some 16,000 Brothers, and leaders of the secular youth movement that sparked the Tahrir revolt, have been rounded up and jailed. --- Officials privately agree that Egypt needs not just the iron fist but a whole new outlook from its rulers, including an overhaul of the nation's religious and political institutions. -- The pent-up anger among the Tahrir Square youth, close watchers say, is likely to explode again if Sisi or his future government fail to create jobs in the Arab world's most populous country of 85 million people. -- "This country is known to turn on a sixpence very quickly. Sisi is now a total hero, he can be tomorrow's villain. He knows that," said a European diplomat. "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes." -- Sisi's security establishment has already destroyed nearly all opposition, Islamist and secular. Besides the 529 Islamists sentenced to death, almost 1,000 more have been brought before the courts. -- Defense lawyers say Egypt's judiciary is handing down politically motivated sentences to wipe out the Brotherhood, which won a series of elections after the fall of Mubarak. - MORE, Samia Nakhoul, at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/11/us-egypt-brotherhood-insight-idUSBREA3A0E820140411