Cairo, Nov 23: Thousands of opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi clashed with his supporters in cities across the country on Friday, burning several offices of the Muslim Brotherhood.
These are the most violent and widespread protests since Mohamed Morsi came to power, sparked by his move to grant himself sweeping powers on Thursday.
The violence reflected the increasingly dangerous polarization in Egypt over what course it will take nearly two years after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Critics of Morsi accused him of seizing dictatorial powers with his decrees a day earlier that make him immune to judicial oversight and give him authority to take any steps against "threats to the revolution". On Friday, the president spoke before a crowd of his supporters massed in front of his palace and said his edits were necessary to stop a "minority" that was trying to block the goals of the revolution.
"There are weevils eating away at the nation of Egypt," he said, pointing to old regime loyalists he accused of using money to fuel instability and to members of the judiciary who work under the "umbrella" of the courts to "harm the country."
Clashes between his opponents and members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood erupted in several cities. In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, anti-Morsi crowds attacked Brotherhood backers coming out of a mosque, raining stones and firecrackers on them. The Brothers held up prayer rugs to protect themselves and the two sides pelted each other with stones and chunks of marble, leaving at least 15 injured. The protesters then stormed a nearby Brotherhood office.
In the capital Cairo, security forces pumped volleys of tear gas at thousands of pro-democracy protesters clashing with riot police on streets several blocks from Tahrir Square.
Tens of thousands of activists massed in Tahrir itself, angered at the decisions by Morsi. Many of them represent Egypt's upper-class, liberal elite, which have largely stayed out of protests in past months but were prominent in the streets during the anti-Muabrak uprising that began January 25, 2011.
Protesters chanted, "Leave, leave" and "Morsi is Mubarak ... Revolution everywhere."
"We are in a state of revolution. He is crazy of he thinks he can go back to one-man rule," one protester at Tahrir, Sara Khalil, said of Morsi. "This decision shows how insecure and weak he is because he knows there is no consensus."
"If the Brotherhood's slogan is 'Islam is the solution' ours is 'submission is not the solution'," said Khalil, a mass communications professor at the American University in Cairo. "And this is Islamic because God does not call for submission to another man's will."
Frustration had been growing for months with Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president who came to office in June. Critics say the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, has been moving to monopolize power and that he has done little to tackle mounting economic problems and continuing insecurity, much less carry out deeper reforms.
Morsi's supporters, in turn, say he has faced constant push-back from Mubarak loyalists and from the courts, where loyalists have a strong presence. The courts have been considering a string of lawsuits demanding the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated assembly writing the next constitution. The courts already dissolved a previous version of the assembly and the Brotherhood-led lower house of parliament.
On Thursday, Morsi unilaterally issued amendments to the interim constitution that made all his decisions immune to judicial review or court orders. He gave similar protection to the constitutional panel and the upper house of parliament, which is dominated by the Brotherhood and also faced possible disbanding by the courts.
Morsi, who holds legislative as well as executive powers, also declared his power to take any steps necessary to prevent "threats to the revolution," public safety or the workings of state institutions. Rights activists warned that the vague — and unexplained — wording could give him even greater power than those Mubarak held under emergency laws throughout his rule.
The decree would be in effect until a new constitution is approved and parliamentary elections are held, not expected until the Spring.
The state media described Morsi's decree as a "corrective revolution," and the official radio station aired phone calls from listeners praising the president's decree. The president's supporters cast the decrees as the next logical step to consolidate the gains of the 2011 uprising that overthrew Mubarak, and the only way to break through the political deadlock preventing the adoption of a new constitution.
But many veteran activists who organized that uprising say Morsi's decree puts him in the same category as Mubarak, who argued his autocratic powers were necessary only to shepherd Egypt to a new democratic future.
Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN's nuclear agency, called Morsi a "new pharaoh." The president's one-time ally, the April 6 movement, warned that the polarization could bring a "civil war."
One of Morsi's aides, Coptic Christian thinker Samer Marqous, resigned to protest the "undemocratic" decree.
"This is a crime against Egypt and a declaration of the end of January revolution to serve the interest of the Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship," wrote Ibrahim Eissa, chief editor of daily Al-Tahrir. "The revolution is over and the new dictator has killed her. His next step is to throw Egypt in prison."
In front of the presidential palace, Muslim Brotherhood supporters and other Islamists changed "the people support the president's decree" and pumped their fists in the air.
"God will humiliate those who are attacking our president, Mohamed Morsi," said ultraconservative cleric Mohamed Abdel-Maksoud. "Whoever insults the sultan, God humiliates him," he added.
Outside the capital, the rival groups clashed.
State TV reported that protesters burned offices of the Brotherhood's political arm in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismalia and Port Said, east of Cairo.
In the southern city of Assiut, ultraconservative Islamists of the Salafi tend and former Jihadists outnumbered liberal and leftists, such as the April 6 youth groups. The two sides exchanged insults and briefly scuffled with firsts and stones.
With his decrees, Morsi was playing to widespread discontent with the judiciary. Many — even Brotherhood opponents — are troubled by the presence of so many Mubarak-era judges and prosecutors, who they say have failed to strongly enough prosecute the old regime's top officials and security forces for crimes including the killing of protesters.
In his decrees, Morsi fired the controversial prosecutor general and created "revolutionary" judicial bodies to put Mubarak and some of his top aides on trial a second time for protester killings. Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison for failing to stop police from shooting at protesters, but many were angry he was not found guilty of actually ordering the crackdown during the uprising against his rule.
In his speech Friday. Morsi told supporters that his decisions were meant to stop those "taking shelter under judiciary."
He said the courts had been about to disband the upper house of parliament.
"This is minority but they represent a threat to the revolution goals," he said. "It is my duty if I see this, to go forward along the path of the revolution and prevent any blockage."
