Pro-government demonstrators have taken to the streets of Cairo to rally in support of a new draft constitution approved after a 20-hour vote on Thursday night and Friday morning.
The marches, scheduled to begin shortly after the afternoon prayer, saw “Islamist and nationalist revolutionary forces” set off from mosques in Cairo and head for Al-Nadha square, said the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political wing.
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Cairo, said “it will be quite a successful rally” based on the initial turnout in the first hour of the demonstrations
Morsi himself is scheduled to meet with a constituent assembly and a small delegation to discuss the constitutional draft and a date for a referendum for a popular vote.
Brotherhood activists in several cities passed out fliers calling for people to come out and “support Islamic law.”
A number of Muslim clerics in Friday sermons in the southern city of Assiut called the president’s opponents “enemies of God and Islam”.
Criticisms of the decree have once again taken a toll on the nation’s economy as the Egyptian stock market plummeted for a second time since the late November decree. The previous tumble saw the bourse suspend trading for 30 minutes after the EGX-30 index shed 9.49 per cent by midday on November 25 to reach 4,923.19 points.
Saturday’s demonstrations come a day after protests against the draft turned violent in the mediterranean city of Alexandria.
The demonstrators chanted “freedom, down with the constitutional establishment”, as riot police charged along the city’s streets and crowds of protesters surrounded police vehicles.
The protests were sparked by the president’s decrees a week ago granting himself wide-ranging power to issue decrees which would not be subject to judicial review.
Elsewhere in the country, thousands took to the streets of the capital. In central Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a “million-man” protest, “the victim’s dream”, convened only hours after the draft constitutent was rushed through by the country’s Constituent Assembly (CA).
“The protest will be extended until he steps down,because he is not the right person to legislate. The people elected him to make reforms for the country, not to draft a constitution that works perfectly for himself. We want him to make reforms for the country,” Ahmed Ramadan, an anti-Morsi protester told the Reuters news agency.
Anti-Morsi protesters who camped overnight have once again taken to the square. Our correspondent, who described the pro-Morsi demonstrations at Cairo University as the “complete opposite of what comes out Tahrir”, says the slogans at both series of rallies show just “how deep the division are in this country”.
Tension prevails
“Morsi stole the fruits of the revolution. He became the president after the election and we did not oppose that. But after that, he abandoned democracy and we found ourselves facing another autocrat, Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi,” one protester said.
“The smoke bombs, bullets, machine guns and the sacrifice of youth, it is a similar situation like in the days of Hosni Mubarak’s. Morsi doesn’t see people’s requests, listen to people’s ideas or care about the current situation. He is just another autocrat and the situation has not changed,” another protester said.
Security forces reinforced their presence around key government facilities, especially the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) headquarters, police stations and prisons, after several FJP’s offices had been attacked during recent clashes, MENA reported.
In an interview with state television aired on Thursday night, Morsi said it was necessary to speed up passage of the constitution in order to end Egypt’s transitional period.
He also promised that his new found legislative powers would end after the referendum.
The elected parliament was dissolved by court order earlier this year; new parliamentary elections will be held once the constitution is approved.
“This constitutional declaration is temporary, and it will end once the people have approved the constitution,” Morsi said.
At least three people have been killed and more than 600 injured during the nationwide protests since the declaration was issued.