Morsi opponents clash with police as protests heat up
Source: Agencies |
November 28, 2012, Wednesday
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OPPONENTS of President Mohammed Morsi clashed with Egyptian police yesterday as thousands of protesters stepped up pressure on the Islamist to scrap a decree they say threatens the nation with a new era of autocracy.
Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets off Cairo's Tahrir Square, center of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year. A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling the gas, the second fatality since Morsi announced the decree expanding his powers and preventing court challenges to his decisions last week.
Yesterday's protest called by leftists, liberals and other groups marked a deepening of the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June and exposed a divide between the Islamists and their opponents.
Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in the square, and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds more have been injured.
Morsi's move has also provoked a rebellion by judges and battered confidence in a struggling economy.
Morsi's administration has defended it as a move to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Opponents say it shows he has dictatorial instincts.
"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters chanted, echoing slogans used in the anti-Mubarak uprising.
"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," said 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini.
The protest was a show of strength by the non-Islamist opposition, whose fractious ranks have been pushed together by the crisis. Well-organized Islamists have consistently beaten more secular-minded parties at the ballot box in elections held since Mubarak was ousted in February 2011.
Some scholars from the al-Azhar mosque and university joined the protest, showing Morsi has alienated some more moderate Muslims.
The decree issued last Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament expected next year.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said it gives Morsi more power than the military junta from which he assumed power.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Austria's Die Presse newspaper: "I have also noted that Morsi wants to resolve the problem in a dialogue. I will encourage him to continue to do so."
Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets off Cairo's Tahrir Square, center of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year. A 52-year-old protester died after inhaling the gas, the second fatality since Morsi announced the decree expanding his powers and preventing court challenges to his decisions last week.
Yesterday's protest called by leftists, liberals and other groups marked a deepening of the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June and exposed a divide between the Islamists and their opponents.
Some protesters have been camped out since Friday in the square, and violence has flared around the country, including in a town north of Cairo where a Muslim Brotherhood youth was killed in clashes on Sunday. Hundreds more have been injured.
Morsi's move has also provoked a rebellion by judges and battered confidence in a struggling economy.
Morsi's administration has defended it as a move to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Opponents say it shows he has dictatorial instincts.
"The people want to bring down the regime," protesters chanted, echoing slogans used in the anti-Mubarak uprising.
"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," said 32-year-old Ahmed Husseini.
The protest was a show of strength by the non-Islamist opposition, whose fractious ranks have been pushed together by the crisis. Well-organized Islamists have consistently beaten more secular-minded parties at the ballot box in elections held since Mubarak was ousted in February 2011.
Some scholars from the al-Azhar mosque and university joined the protest, showing Morsi has alienated some more moderate Muslims.
The decree issued last Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament expected next year.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said it gives Morsi more power than the military junta from which he assumed power.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Austria's Die Presse newspaper: "I have also noted that Morsi wants to resolve the problem in a dialogue. I will encourage him to continue to do so."
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