Muslim Brotherhood offices torched as Egyptian president claims dictatorshipBy Agence France-Presse
Friday, November 23, 2012 8:48 EST
Protesters torched Muslim Brotherhood offices on Friday, state media said, as supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi staged rival rallies across Egypt a day after he assumed sweeping powers.
The offices of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, were set ablaze in the canal cities of Ismailiya and Port Said, state television said.
An FJP official told AFP the party’s office was also stormed in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, where clashes broke out between rival demonstrators.
In Cairo, an array of liberal and secular groups, including activists at the forefront of the protest movement that forced veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak from power early last year, planned to march on Tahrir Square, Cairo’s iconic protest hub, to demonstrate against the “new pharaoh”.
Morsi’s backers led by the powerful Muslim Brotherhood gathered outside the presidential palace in north Cairo in a show of support for his decision to temporarily place his decisions above judicial oversight.
“The people support the president’s decisions,” the crowd chanted.
Morsi was mulling an address to the nation defending his decision later in the day, aides said.
On Thursday, the president undercut a hostile judiciary that had been considering whether to scrap an Islamist-dominated panel drawing up a new constitution, stripping judges of the right to rule on the case or to challenge his decrees.
The decision effectively places the president above judicial oversight until a new constitution is ratified.
Morsi’s opponents poured into Tahrir Square after the main weekly Muslim prayers.
They were expected to be joined by leading secular politicians Mohamed ElBaradei, a former UN nuclear watchdog chief, and Amr Mussa, a former foreign minister and Arab League chief.
“This is a coup against legitimacy… We are calling on all Egyptians to protest in all of Egypt’s squares on Friday,” said Sameh Ashour, head of the lawyers’ syndicate, in a joint news conference with ElBaradei and Mussa.
ElBaradei denounced Morsi as a “new pharaoh,” the same term of derision used against Mubarak when he was in power.
“Morsi is a ‘temporary’ dictator,” read the banner headline in Friday’s edition of independent daily Al-Masry Youm.
The Islamist president assumed his sweeping new powers in a decree read out by his spokesman Yasser Ali on state television on Thursday.
“The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” it said.
“The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”
Morsi also sacked prosecutor general Abdel Meguid Mahmud, whom he failed to oust last month, amid strong misgivings among the president’s supporters about the failure to secure convictions of more members of the old regime.
Morsi appointed Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah to replace Mahmud and, within minutes of the announcement, the new prosecutor was shown on television being sworn in.
Abdallah later issued a brief statement, pledging to “work day and night to achieve the goals of the revolution.”
In his pronouncement, the president also ordered “new investigations and retrials” in cases involving the deaths of protesters, a decision that could net military top brass and other former Mubarak regime officials.
The declaration is aimed at “cleansing state institutions” and “destroying the infrastructure of the old regime,” the president’s spokesman said.
A senior official of the Justice and Freedom Party, the Brotherhood’s political arm, said Morsi’s decision was necessary to guarantee the revolution was on course.
“We could not find any legal avenue to pinpoint and prosecute those in the interior ministry who were responsible for killings,” Gehad Haddad told AFP.
He said there had been a string of acquittals of interior ministry officials, evidence was withheld in cases, investigations had been weak and many had not been brought to trial over the killings of hundreds of protesters during and since the uprising — a view that secular protesters would agree with.
“The avenues we are taking are born of necessity, not choice,” he said.
Some 850 protesters were killed in clashes with security forces or Mubarak loyalists during last year’s uprising.
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IHT Rendezvous -
November 24, 2012, 1:00 am
Morsi’s High-Stakes GambleBy DAVID ROHDE
After helping end the fighting in Gaza, impressing President Barack Obama and negotiating a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt seems to have fallen victim to what Bill Clinton calls "brass."
President Morsi's post-Gaza actions on Thursday, which most commentators are calling a power grab, appear to many as politically tone deaf, strategic folly and classic overreach. He said his assumption of wider powers was meant to get Egypt past its post-Mubarak political sclerosis, but he may well deepen Egypt's political polarization, scare off desperately needed foreign investment and waste Egypt's rising credibility in the region and the world.
Television images of renewed clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez will play into stereotypes that the Middle East is not ready for democracy. They will bolster suspicions inside and outside Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood cannot be trusted.
I disagree with the skeptics and believe democracy can still be established in Egypt. But Mr. Morsi's moves won't help Egypt make that difficult transition.
"There was a disease but this is not the remedy," Hassan Nafaa, a liberal political science professor and activist at Cairo University, told Reuters Friday. "We are going towards more polarization between the Islamist front on one hand and all the others on the other. This is a dangerous situation."
Indeed, an alarming dynamic seems to be taking hold in Egypt. Power grabs, brinksmanship and walk-outs are becoming the norm, as a bitter struggle plays out among newly empowered Islamists, vestiges of the Mubarak regime and the country's deeply divided liberals. Political paralysis is the result - with rule by presidential decree, overreach by the judiciary and a deadlocked constitutional assembly. As polarization deepens, desperately needed economic, political and judicial reforms stall.
Friday's street protests were relatively small compared to the massive Arab spring demonstrations. But the trend is in the wrong direction.
"President Morsi has used the nearly absolute authority he assumed last August," Nathan Brown warned in an excellent analysis for The Arabist, "to try to put that absolute authority beyond reach, at least on a temporary basis. He may very well succeed."
In a surprising triumph in August, Mr. Morsi abruptly ended the Egyptian military's post-Mubarak rule of the country. After apparently gaining the support of younger military officers, Mr. Morsi forced older, pro-Mubarak officers, led by Field Marshall Muhamad Hussein Tantawi, into retirement. Mr. Morsi then seized sweeping powers.
In one positive sign, he has used his new authority sparingly. Critics who feared an Islamist crackdown were proven wrong. His boldest move was a failed October attempt to remove the country's unpopular prosecutor general, a Mubarak holdover widely criticized for mounting lenient prosecutions of Mr. Mubarak and other former officials. When the prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, refused to obey Mr. Morsi's order to resign, the new president quickly backed down.
That restraint vanished on Thursday. Mr. Morsi removed the unpopular prosecutor, opened the doors for a re-trial of Mubarak and other officials and granted himself and the country's constitutional assembly immunity from rulings by the country's pro-Mubarak judiciary.
Critics feared pro-Mubarak judges would dissolve the constitutional assembly, just as they had dissolved the country's first democratically elected parliament before Morsi was elected president in June.
In a speech outside the presidential palace on Friday, Mr. Morsi argued that he had seized sweeping powers to preserve the transition to democracy. He promised that once full constitutional democracy was established, he would relinquish these powers.
"I am for all Egyptians," Mr. Morsi said, adding that he was working for social and economic stability and the rotation of power. "I will not be biased against any son of Egypt."
Unfortunately, the world has seen this script before. It almost always turns out badly. A destructive dynamic is taking hold in Egypt. The poisonous distrust and conspiracy theories that have handicapped the country's transition to democracy are deepening.
On Friday, a senior Brotherhood official scoffed at liberal opposition leader Muhammed El Baradei's calls for protests.
"We're not scared of El Baradei," the official told journalist Lauren E. Bohn, "he has no real support on street, he's Western."
El Baradei and members of the country's liberal opposition have their flaws. They are deeply divided, failed to build strong political organizations and too quickly engaged in boycotts and walk-outs.
Only Egyptians can change Egypt's political culture. The international community, though, can signal its support for constitutional democracy and the rule of law in Egypt. The State Department issued a statement on Friday calling on all sides to peacefully resolve their differences. But the quicker way to create pressure is through the IMF.
On Tuesday, officials from Egypt and the IMF announced a tentative agreement to issue a $4.8 billion IMF loan to the country's strapped government. Egyptian officials agreed to enact spending and tax reforms designed to reduce the country's deficit, attract foreign investment and restore the economic growth that vanished after Mubarak's fall.
IMF officials said the loan was part of a huge $14.5 billion funding package planned for Egypt. They did not name the donors but they are believed to include the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Final approval of the $4.8 billion IMF agreement lies with the group's board, due to meet on Dec. 19.
Washington, Brussels and the IMF could set benchmarks for the disbursement of the aid, pegged to democratic reform being implemented in Egypt. But fears of instability in Egypt or Gaza could prompt the international community to turn a blind eye to Mr. Morsi's actions. All of Egypt's key stakeholders - whether Islamists or secular liberals - could be shown that they will pay a price for anti-democratic excess.
The United States funneled billions to Egyptian dictators in the past. The results were grim: poverty, economic stagnation and deep resentment of the United States. If Mr. Morsi - or any Egyptian leader - flouts democracy, Washington has some leverage over them given the billions Egypt still receives in American and international aid.
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Egypt judges slam Morsi over ‘unprecedented attack’By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, November 24, 2012 10:18 EST
Egyptian judges on Saturday slammed a decree by President Mohamed Morsi granting him sweeping powers as “an unprecedented attack” on the judiciary, and courts across two provinces announced a strike.
The constitutional declaration is “an unprecedented attack on the independence of the judiciary and its rulings,” the Supreme Judicial Council said after an emergency meeting.
The council, which handles administrative affairs and judicial appointments, called on the president to remove “anything that touches the judiciary” from the declaration.
Meanwhile, the Judges Club of Alexandria announced “the suspension of work in all courts and prosecution administrations in the provinces of Alexandria and Beheira.”
The Alexandria judges “will accept nothing less than the cancellation of (Morsi’s decree),” which violates the principle of separation of power, club chief Mohammed Ezzat al-Agwa said.
In Cairo, a general assembly of judges was holding emergency talks to mull a response to the presidential decree.
Morsi’s declaration — which acts as a temporary charter — allows him to issue any law or decree “to protect the revolution” that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year, with no decision or law subject to challenge in court.
He also sacked prosecutor general Abdel Meguid Mahmud, which had been a key demand of protesters.
In Cairo, a statement by some 20 “independent judges” said that while some of the decisions taken by the president were a response to popular demands, they were issued “at the expense of freedom and democracy.”
Morsi also ordered the reopening of investigations into the deaths of some 850 protesters during the 2011 uprising, and hundreds more since.
In a statement, new prosecutor general Talaat Ibrahim Abdallah said that new “revolutionary courts” would be set up and could see Mubarak, his sons and his top security chiefs retried “should there be new evidence.”
Mubarak and his interior minister were sentenced to life over the killing of the protesters, but six security chiefs were acquitted in the same case sparking nationwide outrage.
The ousted president’s two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were acquitted on corruption charges but are facing new fraud charges.
Morsi’s assumption of sweeping powers is seen as a blow to the pro-democracy movement that ousted Mubarak, but his backers say his move will cut back a turbulent and seeminly endless transition to democracy.
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Egypt protesters tear-gassed as world concern mountsBy Agence France-Presse
Saturday, November 24, 2012 9:24 EST
Anti-riot police fired tear gas on Saturday to disperse protesters camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as Western governments voiced growing concern over Islamist President Mohamed Morsi’s assumption of sweeping powers.
A hard core of opposition activists had spent the night in the iconic protest hub — epicentre of the popular uprising that toppled veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak last year — erecting some 30 tents, an AFP correspondent reported.
But when more demonstrators attempted to join them in the morning, police responded with volleys of tear gas forcing them to retreat into surrounding streets.
By midday, small groups of protesters continued to occupy the square, where traffic in the normally busy thoroughfare was almost brought to a halt.
Opposition-led protests were held in most of Egypt’s major cities on Friday sparking violent clashes in the canal city of Suez and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, where offices of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, which backed Morsi for the presidency, were torched.
The mainly secular liberal activists voiced determination to keep up the momentum of their protests against Morsi’s decree on Thursday which placed his decisions beyond judicial scrutiny, vastly adding to his power.
They called a new mass protest in Tahrir for Tuesday.
“Egypt is at the start of a new revolution because it was never our intention to replace one dictator with another,” activist Mohammed al-Gamal told AFP, showing his broken spectacles and hand in a plaster cast than he said were the result of the police action.
Washington, which only Wednesday had voiced fulsome praise for Morsi’s role in brokering a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers to end eight days of deadly violence, led international criticism of the Islamist president’s move.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups were also out in strength on Friday in a show of support for the president in his move to prevent the courts dissolving the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly and upper house of parliament as they have already the lower house.
Clashes broke out between the rival supporters in several cities, AFP correspondents and state television reported.
In an address to supporters outside the presidential palace, Morsi insisted that Egypt remained on the path to “freedom and democracy”, despite his move to undercut the judiciary.
“Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for,” he said.
The president already held both and executive and legislative powers and Thursday’s decree puts him beyondjudicial oversight until a new constitution has been ratified in a referendum.
It also means that the Islamist-dominated panel drawing up the new charter can no longer be touched and gives it a two-month extension — until February next year — to complete its work.
Washington and European governments voiced concern about the concentration of power in Morsi’s hands and its implications for the democratic gains of last year’s uprising which toppled Mubarak.
“The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community,” said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
“One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution.”
The European Union urged the Egyptian president to respect the democratic process.
“It is of utmost importance that democratic process be completed in accordance with the commitments undertaken by the Egyptian leadership,” a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
But a spokesman for the Freedom and Justice Party, headed by Morsi before his election, said the president’s decree was necessary to cut short the turbulent transition.
“We need stability,” said Murad Ali. “That’s not going to happen if we go back again to allowing the judges, who have personal reasons, to dissolve the constituent assembly in order to prolong the transitional phase.”
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The Lede - The New York Times News Blog
November 23, 2012, 6:50 pm
Anger in Egypt Over Power Grab by President MorsiBy LIAM STACK
As my colleagues report from Cairo, protesters torched the offices of Egypt's ruling Islamist party in several cities on Friday during an outpouring of public anger one day after President Mohamed Morsi issued a sweeping decree granting himself broad new powers and putting his decisions above any challenges by the country's courts.
Protesters set fire to the offices of the ruling Freedom and Justice Party in the seaside city of Alexandria, long a stronghold of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mr. Morsi was a leader until he resigned to run for president. Party offices also burned in the Suez Canal cities of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia. Activists and bloggers uploaded witness accounts, photographs and video of the protests.
"@marwanmowaffak1: اسكندرية ولعوهاا
http://t.co/Hn160Tht" ahsaan !!
- Sehsolisim (@hussein_morsi) 23 Nov 12
There were reports of running skirmishes between Morsi supporters and opponents in Alexandria, with more than a dozen injured. Those fights continued after nightfall.
Hit and run fights with some skirmishes between anti-Morsi protesters and MB around the Muslim Brotherhood office in Alexandria. #Nov23
- Mohamed Abdelfattah (@mfatta7) 23 Nov 12
Friday's unrest came at the end of a violent week in downtown Cairo, which has been shaken by several days of clashes between protesters and the police. The current round of fighting began on the one-year anniversary of an epic, dayslong street battle that killed 42 protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street and was a turning point in Egypt's transition to democracy.
An Amazing moving picture of #Tahrir carrying pictures of martyrs
#Nov23
http://t.co/DxqFsI7h - Amina Ghali (@AminaGhali) 23 Nov 12
Those clashes continued into the night on Friday, even as thousands of protesters streamed into nearby Tahrir Square to demonstrate against Mr. Morsi's decree.
One video clip posted on YouTube by the blogger who writes as Kikhote shows thousands of protesters, including the hardcore soccer fans known as Ultras, marching into Tahrir Square from Qasr al-Nil Bridge chanting, "Leave!" They also chant, "You sold out the revolution, Badie," a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie.
Watch on Youtube.
Ultras March is visible as a distinct mass moving itself through #tahrir towards the clashes. Kinda awesome.
- sherief gaber (@cairocitylimits) 23 Nov 12
Summarizing the stakes of this latest political conflict, the blogger who writes as @KerlreMarks on Twitter cracked a joke.
So Morsi and his team walk into a bar. But I must warn you that the punchline cannot be revoked or challenged by anyone. #Egypt
- Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) 23 Nov 12
Large numbers of protesters also gathered outside the presidential palace to support Mr. Morsi, who emerged from the building, flanked by security guards, to address the crowd.
Crowds at presidential palace now in support to #Morsi now
@ikhwanweb @liamstack @LaurenBohn @gelhaddad @CFKlebergTT
http://t.co/2SmWpA6I - Islam Abdel-Rahman (@IslamRahman) 23 Nov 12
In his speech, Mr. Morsi promised that his expanded powers were intended as a temporary measure. Far from aspiring to dictatorial powers, Mr. Morsi told his supporters that his political opponents had an important role to play in Egypt's political life.
Mr. Morsi is Egypt's first democratically elected president and the first civilian and the first Islamist to lead the nation. He has portrayed his power grab as an effort to protect the revolution and overcome political gridlock between Islamists and secularists that has jammed the constitution-writing process.
In Tahrir Square, journalists and activists involved in the clashes used social networks to document the chaotic scenes that unfolded throughout the day and into the night.
Protesters and the police pelted each other with rocks, and the police chased protesters on foot and in armored cars and flooded the streets with tear gas.
As kida threw rox, police threw cansiters in front of us,1 fell in front of me, a guy picked it up out of my way. I almost stopped breathin
- Reem Abdellatif ريم (@Reem_Abdellatif) 23 Nov 12
Ive left Kasr Al Aini, can barely breath. Protesters fell behind me, dozens being carried out. Unbelievable how police hasnt changed
- Reem Abdellatif ريم (@Reem_Abdellatif) 23 Nov 12
Men in civilian clothes climbed to the roof of a shuttered high school to throw rocks - and whatever else they could get their hands on - onto the heads of people standing below. Observers could not agree, though, on whether the men were plainclothes policemen attacking protesters or vice versa.
Throwing rocks at the police. #Nov23 #Cairo
http://t.co/F9KmcrLL - T Todras-Whitehill (@taratw) 23 Nov 12
Police still throwing rocks from the rooftop of Lecee in Mohamed Mahmoud while lights are turned off. Head injuries.
- Jonathan Rashad (@JonathanRashad) 23 Nov 12
After night fell, the lights went out on Mohamed Mahmoud Street and nearby Qasr el-Aini Street, the heart of the battle between protesters and the police. In response, Ultras - revolutionary street protesters who double as soccer fanatics - responded by launching fireworks and flares at the police.
#tahrir #nov23 19.35 a power cut has occured in a big block overlooking the square where news broadcasters are
http://t.co/tOjOQ8sQ - Quick SoTic (@kikhote) 23 Nov 12
Lights turned off in Kasr Ainy and Mohamed Mahmoud. Ultras throwing fireworks and shamareekh at police.
- Jonathan Rashad (@JonathanRashad) 23 Nov 12
#photo : Violence in #Tahrir - El Qasr El Ainy. Like a fireworks!!
http://t.co/qpZUMvnP - عمرو جميل (@AmrJamil) 23 Nov 12
The clashes resulted in a fire on the roof of an ornate, neo-Ottoman-style building on Mohamed Mahmoud Street. It is not clear how the fire was started.
Cilantro Building has a fire on the roof #MohamedMahmoud #Nov23 #Cairo #Tahrir
http://t.co/DZVW8GsL - Quick SoTic (@kikhote) 23 Nov 12
Watch on Youtube.
By nightfall, protesters began to pitch tents in the square to settle in for an overnight sit-in.
Some people starting to put up tents in #Tahrir.
http://t.co/z36TWOhH - Basil El-Dabh (@BasilElD) 23 Nov 12
Sherief Gaber, who blogs as @cairocitylimits, reported that the violent clashes seemed to put an end to a sit-in by a small group of Islamist supporters of the blind Egyptian sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who had occupied a street just off Tahrir Square, next to the United States Embassy, for more than a year to demand his release from an American prison.
People throwing rocks at a poster of the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman
http://t.co/uMY1sfnB - Basil El-Dabh (@BasilElD) 23 Nov 12
While Mr. Morsi's decree sparked dueling rallies and fueled street clashes, it also provoked fierce debate in online social networks.
Supporters of Mr. Morsi echoed his promises that the decree's sweeping powers were temporary and would lapse after Egypt holds parliamentary elections and writes a constitution. Mr. Morsi has held both executive and legislative power since his election because the military junta that ruled before him dissolved parliament in June.
Gehad el-Haddad, a senior adviser to the Muslim Brotherhood, explained the group's position on Twitter.
All Constitutional Declarations made tonight are void once we have a Parliment and a Constitution in place,
- Gehad El-Haddad (@gelhaddad) 22 Nov 12
Islam Rahman, a member of the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, said that Morsi needed expanded powers to defend the revolution from the judiciary, whose members were appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak. They have been the only institutional check on Mr. Morsi's power since he was elected.
Immunity for president's decisions is against a corrupted constitutional court not against political opponents
@hahellyer @liamstack #Egypt
- Islam Abdel-Rahman (@IslamRahman) 22 Nov 12
@kbahey @hahellyer @liamstack Again this is exceptional state. We can oppose by having a constitution and elected parliament
- Islam Abdel-Rahman (@IslamRahman) 22 Nov 12
Opponents of Mr. Morsi's move reacted angrily to these arguments both online and in Egypt's independent press. Some compared the decree to power grabs that took place in the country's not so distant past.
@IslamRahman @hahellyer @liamstack Don't know if you remember, but that is how Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak did it: exceptional circumstances
- Khalid Baheyeldin (@kbahey) 22 Nov 12
Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of the country's leading independent daily newspapers, mocked President Morsi as a "temporary dictator."
Front Page Of Egyptian Daily Al-Masry Al-Youm tomorrow, referring to the President: "Morsi Is A Temporary Dictator"
http://t.co/jHCCqzaf - Bassem Sabry باسم (@Bassem_Sabry) 22 Nov 12
This is a link to a photo of the front page of Al-Masry Al-Youm.
الصفحة الأولى من جريدة المصري اليوم عدد الجمعة 23 نوفمبر
http://t.co/XYsu2NSb - المصري اليوم (@AlMasryAlYoum) 22 Nov 12
In addition to expanding his power, Mr. Morsi also used the decree to fire the country's public prosecutor, who was another holdover from the Mubarak regime. He also ordered the retrial of former regime officials, including President Mubarak, who was sentenced in June to 25 years in jail for failing to stop the killing of some 800 protesters in the 18-day Tahrir Square uprising. The same trial found Mr. Mubarak not guilty of corruption during his rule.
New investigations into Mr. Mubarak and his top aides began immediately, according to Mr. Haddad.
Confirmed: New Prosecutor General reopens investigations with Mubarak, his last MoIA: Habib Al-Adly, and his 6 top generals.
- Gehad El-Haddad (@gelhaddad) 22 Nov 12
Those moves may have been intended to sweeten the deal for protesters and street activists, but few seem satisfied. One exchange in a Twitter post by Kristen Chick, a foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, summarized the mood of many in the square.
Protesters in Tahrir say Morsi gave them "honey and poison" by announcing prosecutor general and retrial decisions alongside "power grab"
- Kristen Chick (@kristenchick) 23 Nov 12
Reporting was contributed by Robert Mackey.
