Posts tagged Muslim Brotherhood
GET OUT! Egypt’s President Morsi Flees Palace As Islamist Protests Reach Fever Pitch
Dec 4th
(Reuters) – Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi’s palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, two presidential sources said.
Police fired teargas at demonstrators angered by Mursi’s drive to hold a referendum on a new constitution on December 15. Some broke through police lines around his palace and protested next to the perimeter wall.
Several thousand people had gathered nearby in what they dubbed “last warning” protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents with a November 22 decree that expanded his powers. “The people want the downfall of the regime,” the crowd chanted.
“The president left the palace,” a presidential source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. A security source at the presidency also said the president had left the building.
Mursi ignited a storm of unrest in his bid to prevent a judiciary still packed with appointees of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak from derailing a troubled political transition.
Riot police at the palace faced off against activists chanting “leave, leave” and holding Egyptian flags with “no to the constitution” written on them. Protesters had assembled near mosques in northern Cairo before marching towards the palace.
“Our marches are against tyranny and the void constitutional decree and we won’t retract our position until our demands are met,” said Hussein Abdel Ghany, a spokesman for an opposition coalition of liberal, leftist and other disparate factions.
Despite the latest protests, there has been only a limited response to opposition calls for a mass campaign of civil disobedience in the Arab world’s most populous country and cultural hub, where many people yearn for a return to stability.
A few hundred protesters gathered earlier near Mursi’s house in a suburb east of Cairo, chanting slogans against his decree and against the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the president emerged to win a free election in June. Police closed the road to stop them from coming any closer, a security official said.
Opposition groups have accused Mursi of making a dictatorial power grab to push through a constitution drafted by an assembly dominated by Islamists, with a referendum planned for December 15.
Egypt’s most widely read independent newspapers did not publish on Tuesday in protest at Mursi’s “dictatorship”. Banks closed early to let staff go home safely in case of trouble.
Abdelrahman Mansour in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the cradle of the anti-Mubarak revolt, said: “The presidency believes the opposition is too weak and toothless. Today is the day we show them the opposition is a force to be reckoned with.”
After winning post-Mubarak elections and pushing the Egyptian military out of the political driving seat it held for decades, the Islamists sense their moment has come to shape the future of Egypt, a longtime U.S. ally whose 1979 peace treaty with Israel is a cornerstone of Washington’s Middle East policy.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, who staged a huge pro-Mursi demonstration on Saturday, are confident that enough members of the judiciary will be available to oversee the mid-December referendum, despite calls by some judges for a boycott.
Cairo stocks closed up 3.5 percent on Tuesday as investors took heart at what they saw as prospects for a return to stability in a country whose divisions have only widened since a mass uprising toppled Mubarak on February 11, 2011.
Mohamed Radwan, at Pharos Securities brokerage, said the Supreme Judicial Council’s agreement to supervise the referendum had generated confidence that the vote would happen “despite all the noise and demonstrations that might take place until then”.
“NO WAY PERFECT”
Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist sympathies, said in an interview with CNN: “We certainly hope that things will quiet down after the referendum is completed.”
He said the constitution was “in no way a perfect text” that everyone had agreed to, but that a “majority consensus” favored moving forward with the referendum in 11 days’ time.
The Muslim Brotherhood, now tasting power via the ballot box for the first time in eight decades of struggle, wants to safeguard its gains and appears ready to override street protests by what it regards as an unrepresentative minority.
It is also determined to stop the courts, which have already dissolved the Islamist-led elected lower house of parliament, from further obstructing their blueprint for change.
Mohamed ElBaradei, coordinator of an opposition National Salvation Front, has said Mursi must rescind his decree, drop plans for the referendum and agree on a new, more representative constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution.
In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times, he accused Mursi and the Brotherhood of believing that “with a few strokes of a pen, they can slide (Egypt) back into a coma”.
ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog, wrote: “If they continue to try, they risk an eruption into violence and chaos that will destroy the fabric of Egyptian society.”
Despite charges that they are anti-Islamist and politically motivated, judges say they are following legal codes in their rulings. Experts say some political changes rushed through in the past two years have been on shaky legal ground.
A Western diplomat said the Islamists were counting on a popular desire for restored normality and economic stability.
“All the messages from the Muslim Brotherhood are that a vote for the constitution is one for stability and a vote against is one for uncertainty,” he said, adding that the cost of the strategy was a “breakdown in consensus politics”. source – Reuters
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood ‘Paying Gangs To Rape Women And Beat Men’
Dec 3rd
Fear, intimation, and business as usual in Egypt
Egypt’s ruling party is paying gangs of thugs to sexually assault women protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square against President Mohamed Morsi, activists said. They also said the Muslim Brotherhood is paying gangs to beat up men who are taking part in the latest round of protests, which followed a decree by President Morsi to give himself sweeping new powers.
Egyptian supporters of Muslim Brotherhood taking part in a demonstration near Cairo University, in Cairo, in support of President Mohamed Morsi’s recent constitutional declaration
It comes as the Muslim Brotherhood co-ordinated a demonstration today in support of President Mohamed Morsi, who is rushing through a constitution to try to defuse opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.
Just 24 hours earlier around 200,000 people gathered in Tahrir Square, the heart of last year’s revolution which toppled President Hosni Mubarak, yesterday to protest against a new draft constitution.
Large marches from around Cairo flowed into the square, chanting ‘Constitution: Void!’ and The people want to bring down the regime.’ But amid the calls for democracy a sinister threat has emerged.
Magda Adly, the director of the Nadeem Centre for Human Rights, said that under Mubarak, the Government paid thugs to beat male protestors and sexually assault women.
‘This is still happening now,’ she told The Times. ‘I believe thugs are being paid money to do this … the Muslim Brotherhood have the same political approaches as Mubarak,’ she said.
One protestor, Yasmine, told the newspaper how she had been in the square filming the demonstrations for a few hours when the crowd suddenly turned.
Before she knew what was happening, about 50 men had surrounded her and began grabbing her breasts. She said they ripped off her clothes, starting with her headscarf and for nearly an hour, indecently assaulted her with their hands.
A few men tried to help her but they were beaten away. Eventually some residents who had seen the attack from their windows came to her aid and an elderly couple pulled her into their home. She suffered internal injuries and was unable to walk for a week.
Four of Yasmine’s friends were also sexually assaulted in the square that day, in the summer.
Afaf el-Sayed, a journalist and activist, told the newspaper she was assaulted by a group of men while protesting in Tahrir Square just over a month ago and she was sure her attackers were ‘thugs from the Muslim Brotherhood’.
In February 2011 the correspondent for the American network CBS, Lara Logan, endured a half-hour sexual assault in Tahrir Square by a group of men. She said after the ordeal that she had been ‘raped with their hands’.
While the exact frequency of these attacks is unknown, activists have reported nearly 20 attacks in the last ten days and say there has been a dramatic increase in mob sex attacks on protestors in the last year.
Most attacks take place in one particular corner of the square, at roughly the same time every evening, and usually starts with a group of men forming a human chain around women as if to protect them.
Yasmine said she was almost sure the assault was planned. She managed to throw her camera to a friend and was able to watch the footage later. She told The Times: ‘Just before the attack it looks like men are getting into position. They look like they’re up to something, they don’t look like random protestors.’
The newspaper spoke to two men who admitted they were paid to target female protestors. Victor and Tutu, both in their thirties, said they operate in a group of around 65 local men and got paid between £10 and £20 a time. But they would not reveal who pays them.
‘We’re told to go out and sexually harass girls so they leave the demonstration,’ Victor told The Times. He said the aim was to cause disruption and instil fear in protesters. He said members of the public sometimes joined in.
Protestors in Tahrir Square yesterday angrily vowed to bring down a draft constitution approved by allies of President Morsi. source – Daily Mail UK
US President Barack Obama Behind Morsi’s Power Grab In Egypt
Nov 28th
In politics there are no accidents or coincidences
If you think that the recent power grab of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi is happening in a vacuum or by mere happenstance, you are greatly fooling yourself. The move by Morsi to make himself Egypt’s new Pharaoh is exactly what the plan has been all along since Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood started the Arab Spring.
Haven’t you wondered why Obama, so vocal during the Gaza-Israeli conflict, is now as quiet as a Mosque Mouse? Not one word has he spoken against Morsi’s coup. And he won’t until he is sure how it will all wind up.
We ask you to consider the following:
- Back in the very beginning of the Ara Spring, Obama sided with the Muslim Brotherhood.
- Obama put the muscle in place to assasinate Muammar Gaddhafi.
- Obama did nothing to stop the Arab Spring as it spread across the Middle East.
- Obama aided the Brotherhood in Yemen with airstirkes.
- Obama convinces G8 to give Muslim Brotherhood $8 billion for Arab Spring.
- The liberal media aided Obama by whole-heartedly embracing the Arab Spring.
- After taking over Egypt, Obama then publicly declared the US-Muslim Brotherhood partnership.
The aboved-cited articles are barely even the tip of the iceberg showing Obama’s blood-stained hands in his partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood. Do a category search on our site and see all the evidence, it’s quite overwhelming.
Obama’s legacy will be that he installed the Muslim Brotherhood firmly in power all across the new Middle East. Its now the United States new foreign policy.
From the very beginning, NTEB has shown you the ever-evolving partnership between Obama and the US with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. All this was done for one reason and one reason only, and that answer is found here in the Holy Scriptures:
The Coming Psalm 83 War Against Israel
“They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.” Psalm 83: 2-8
Lets take a look at who the Muslim nations are that are referenced in Psalm 83:
- The Tabernacles of Edom: South Jordan and Palestine.
- The Ishmaelites: Saudi Arabia
- Moab: Palestinians and Central Jordan
- Hagarenes: Egyptians
- Gebal: Hezbollah and North Lebanon
- Ammon: Palestinians and North Jordan
- Amalek: Sinai
- The Philistines: Hamas of Gaza
- Inhabitants of Tyre: Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon
- Assur: Syrian and Northern Iraq
Interesting note: Contrary to popular belief, the word Selah in the bible at the end of verse 6 does not indicate a “timely pause” or ask the reader to “meditate on what they read”. Instead, it refers to the red rock city of Selah Petra where the Jews will flee during the time of Jacob’s trouble.
This is where the Jews will flee for safety during the time of Jacob’s Trouble – the Red Rock City of Selah, Petra
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7
One by one, we have watched over the last year and a half most of these nations coming together under the mantle of the Arab Spring, and we believe that in short order the remaining nations will as well. This partnership is unique in both world and Muslim history, but is well-known to students of bible prophecy. The Psalm 83 Confederacy is alive and well.
Keep in mind that none of this would have been possible had it not been for Barack Hussein Obama supporting the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood with American taxpayer dollars, influence and military might. and everywhere he has travelled he has beat the drum for other major nations to kick in money and support as well.
You might say it’s the world’s largest non-secret conspiracy theory
Now that he has won a second term as US president, Obama’s naked ambitions will become more and more obvious and all consuming. He has been placed in office by God primarily to judge American for her rebellion and wickedness, and to create the Psalm 83 confederacy.
Can it be stopped? No, it cannot. Ultimately, God’s Sovereignty will decide the exact day and hour of when the attack outlined in Psalm 83 will happen. And no amount of planning and scheming by man will stop or even delay its progress.
Its exciting to be alive in the time of the end spoke of in the bible, just make sure you have this squared away before events really heat up.
Obama Silent As Morsi Brings Egypt To Brink Of Civil War In Power Grab
Nov 28th
Egypt wakes too late to realize that the Muslim Brotherhood betrayed them
More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Cairo on Tuesday to protest against a decree by the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, that grants him sweeping constitutional powers.
Columns of protesters from all over the Egyptian capital descended on Tahrir Square, the focus of the January 2011 revolution, in numbers that rivalled the rallies in the 18-day protest that toppled the authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.
“Dictator” was the word being used to describe Morsi’s new status after last Thursday’s decree, which grants immunity for the president from judicial review as well as protecting a controversial constitutional assembly dominated by the group he is affiliated with, the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Today’s protests are to overthrow oppression and stand up to the new dictatorship of Morsi, his decree and a constitution far removed from the revolution,” said Haytham Mohamedeen of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists movement. “He has to back down. The revolution and the streets will dictate what he will do. If he stands in the way of the revolution, he will share the same fate as Mubarak.”
Other marchers called for Morsi not merely to rescind his decree but to step down from the presidency. The chant of the 2011 revolution – “The people want to bring down the regime” – was echoed in other major Egyptian cities, including Alexandria and Suez.
Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria and Mansoura were ransacked and in the case of latter, set on fire, prompting the organisation to formally request the armed forces to protect the main headquarters in Mokkatam in Cairo.
Security Forces at both scenes had apparently refused to intervene.
Clashes also raged in the city of Mahalla between Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers and anti-Morsi protesters, resulting in 300 injuries, while there were also reports of clashes in Port Said.
Earlier, police continuously fired teargas near Tahrir Square while fighting raged with protesters who continued to arrive in large numbers. Among them was Mohamed ElBaradei, the former International Atomic Energy Agency chief who has taken on the role of co-ordinator of a national salvation front set up to unite opposition to the Morsi decree.
Rami Ghanem, of the National Front for Justice and Democracy, said Morsi’s decree had galvanised and united Egypt‘s disparate opposition groups.
“Most political movements have joined a salvation front with a united political bureau,” he said. “What we have failed to do in the past two years, Morsi has achieved with his decree, uniting all of us.
“Our objection is to the decree, irrespective of which president issued it. Killing continues by the ministry of interior, and governments that do this must be removed. We cannot accept any more transgressions, so this may escalate to peaceful civil disobedience.”
On Monday night, after a meeting with the supreme judicial authority, the presidency issued a statement clarifying the decree and stating that Morsi would use the new powers only for “sovereign matters”, which is presumed to mean anything that relates to national security.
A counter-protest planned by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups was postponed to avoid confrontation with those inflamed by the perceived power grab. Neither of these concessions was enough to stop the protests.
“Morsi has no credibility any more,” said Mohamed Eissa Moussa, a merchant participating in one of the marches. “He must step down. Neither he nor the Muslim Brotherhood can be trusted any more. He is not working for the revolution but for himself and his brotherhood. Had he been different, I would have supported him.”
Ahmed Bakr, a member of Egypt’s union for doctors, said: “He has appropriated the revolution, and what’s worse, he is claiming it is in the name of the revolution. This is a pivotal moment: if we accept his decree, the revolution is over.
“This isn’t democracy, and their adoption of such a decree is farcical. The Brotherhood have no shame and Morsi is tearing this country apart.”
Tahrir Square was teeming with people even before the separate marches reached the area early in the evening. Adapted anti-Mubarak chants calling for the heads of Morsi and the Brotherhood reverberated from the city’s buildings.
However, the Twitter account of the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English-language website, Ikhwanweb, seemed unperturbed by the numbers out in protest, first dismissing the “low turnout” in Tahrir Square and then stating that opposition forces pleased about 300,000 protesters should brace themselves for the “millions” that would come out in support of Morsi.
“On #Jan25, united Egyptians (Islamists, liberals, leftists) revolted against autocracy, supported by millions across country, today is politics,” Ikhwanweb tweeted.
Morsi, emboldened by his success on the international stage for in reaching a truce between Hamas and Israel, has defended his decree by stating it was necessary to defend the revolution from remnants of the Mubarak regime.
It’s expected that Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court will issue a statement clarifying its position regarding Morsi’s decree Wednesday morning.
The number of fatalities in a week of unrest reached four on Tuesday, with news of the death of Fathi Gharib, a member of the Socialist Popular Alliance party, who was reported to have died after inhaling teargas. source – Guardian UK
Muslim Brotherhood Causing Civil War In Cairo
Nov 25th
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood called for protests across the country on Sunday to support President Mohammed Mursi, while the country’s judges urged for a nationwide strike against a decree they saw as granting Mursi new, extensive powers.
The Brotherhood’s protest requests came as Egypt’s Judges Club, a body that represents judges throughout the country, called for “the suspension of work in all courts and prosecution administrations,” after several hours of emergency talks in response to what they called Mursi’s “ferocious attack on Egyptian justice.”
On the ground, clashes erupted outside the High Court between supporters and opponents of Mursi’s new constitutional declaration while the Judges Club held an hours-long emergency meeting inside.
“Some supporters of the declaration shot off fireworks at the gates of the court, and police fired teargas at protesters after they attempted to storm the building,” reported Egypt Independent.
Protesters favoring the declaration started chanting “the people demand the execution of Abdel Maguid,” according to the newspaper, in reference to former Prosecutor General Mahmoud Abdel Meguid, who was sacked after Mursi’s new declaration and was attending the meeting inside.
During Saturday’s meeting, defiant Egyptian judges demanded the president retract a decree granting himself sweeping powers that put him beyond judicial oversight.
As the judges met, civil groups led former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, and former presidential candidates Hamdeen Sabbahi, Amr Mussa and Abdelmoneim Abul Futuh, said there could be no dialogue with Mursi until he rescinded the decree.
“We refuse any dialogue with the president until he cancels the constitutional declaration,” according to a joint statement read out at a news conference.
Several judicial bodies have condemned Mursi’s decree, with the Supreme Judicial Council, denouncing it as “an unprecedented attack on the independence of the judiciary and its rulings.”
Earlier on Saturday, the Judges Club of Alexandria announced a strike in the provinces of Alexandria and Beheira and said they “will accept nothing less than the cancellation of (Mursi’s decree),” which violates the principle of separation of powers, club chief Mohammed Ezzat al-Agwa said.
In the same vain, Egypt’s Shura council (upper house of parliament), dominated mainly by Islamists, said it will hold a meeting Sunday morning to discuss the repercussions of the declaration, according to Al Arabiya.
The president already held both and executive and legislative powers, and his Thursday decree puts him beyond judicial oversight until a new constitution has been ratified in a referendum.
The decree also means that the Islamist-dominated panel drawing up a new constitution can no longer be touched and gives it a two-month extension until February to complete its work.
Rallies by Mursi supporters, foes
A hard core group of opposition activists spent the night in Tahrir Square — the epicentre of the anti-Mubarak uprising — where they erected some 30 tents, an AFP correspondent reported.
When others attempted to join them in the morning, police fired volleys of tear gas and forced them to retreat into surrounding streets, reported AFP.
The mainly secular liberals say they are determined to keep up the momentum of protests against Mursi’s decree and have called a new mass protest in Tahrir onTuesday.
The Muslim Brotherhood called on its own supporters to take to the streets on Tuesday in Abdeen Square, just streets away from Tahrir, to show their support for Mursi.
“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 police action.
Washington, which only Wednesday voiced fulsome praise for Mursi’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.
But a spokesman for the Freedom and Justice Party, headed by Mursi 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.” http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/24/251518.html
TORCHED! Muslim Brotherhood Offices Set On Fire All Across Egypt
Nov 23rd
Arab Spring meets the winter of discontent
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi defended his latest decree granting himself sweeping powers before supporters in Cairo as anti-Morsi demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across Egypt on Friday.
Protesters storm an office of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice party and set fires in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. State TV says Morsi opponents also set fire to his party’s offices in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Port Said and Ismailia. Photograph: Amira Mortada/AP
As enraged demonstrators torched Muslim Brotherhood offices in several Egyptian cities, a defiant Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi defended his recent decree granting himself sweeping powers before a crowd of supporters outside the presidential palace in Cairo Friday.
“Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for,” said Morsi. “I have always been, and still am, and will always be, God willing, with the pulse of the people, what the people want, with clear legitimacy” he said from a podium before thousands of supporters.
Morsi’s speech came a day after he issued a presidential decree stating that any challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions were banned.
Reacting to the decree, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, responding to calls by Egyptian opposition leaders for a “million-man march” to protest against what they called a “coup” by the Islamist president.
Reporting from Tahrir Square, FRANCE 24’s Alexander Turnbull said the crowds started pouring into Cairo’s most symbolic square in the afternoon and that the numbers kept swelling as the Friday noon prayers ended.
‘Furious’ crowds
“They’re furious about Morsi’s new far-reaching powers,” explained Turnbull. “They accuse him of placing himself above the judiciary.”
At the same time, supporters of the Egyptian president gathered outside Cairo’s Heliopolis Presidential Palace, some of them holding photographs of Morsi.
The rival demonstrations – which took place in several Egyptian cities Friday – exposed the deep divisions in the world’s most populous Arab nation five months after Morsi was elected with a 51% sliver of a majority.
Clashes between pro-and anti-Morsi demonstrators broke out in the northern port city of Alexandria, as well as Port Said and Ismailia. Offices of the Freedom and Justice Party – the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood – were attacked in several cities – including the second-largest city of Alexandria. source – France 24
Hail Pharaoh! Protests Rock Egypt After Morsi Seizes Sweeping New Powers
Nov 23rd
Egypt slowly starts to realize they traded one dictator for another
FLASHBACK: NTEB showed you the true nature of the Arab Spring and Obama’s connection to it as far back as May 20,2011
Demonstrators storm Muslim Brotherhood HQ in Alexandria, pelt Port Said office with stones, and call for Egyptian president’s ouster in Cairo after he is called “pharaoh,” the new Mubarak for seizure of new powers.
Egyptians protest in the streets of Alexandria after realizing they were duped into trading one dictator, Murbarak, for a much worse one in Morsi. PHOTO: REUTERS
Protesters stormed the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s party in Alexandria on Friday, throwing chairs and books into the street and setting them alight, after the Egyptian president granted himself sweeping new powers.
Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and opponents also threw stones at each other near a mosque in the city, Egypt’s second largest, a witness said.
Two cars had glass smashed as the clashes moved away from the area.
In Port Said, another port on the Mediterranean, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party headquarters and pelted it with rocks. Some tried to storm it but did not enter, another witness said.
In Cairo, thousands demonstrated against the decree issued on Wednesday night.
Morsi called “pharaoh” for seizing new powers
Morsi’s decree exempting all his decisions from legal challenge until a new parliament was elected caused fury amongst his opponents on Friday who accused him of being the new Hosni Mubarak and hijacking the revolution.
Morsi’s aides said the decree was to speed up a protracted transition that has been hindered by legal obstacles but Morsi’s rivals were quick to condemn him as a new autocratic pharaoh who wanted to impose his Islamist vision on Egypt.
“Morsi a ‘temporary’ dictator,” was the headline in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm and hundreds of protesters in Tahrir Square, the heart of the 2011 anti-Mubarak uprising, demanded Morsi quit, accusing him of launching a “coup”.
Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating a truce between Hamas and Israel, Morsi on Thursday ordered that an Islamist-dominated assembly writing the new constitution could not be dissolved by legal challenges.
Morsi, an Islamist whose roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood party, also gave himself sweeping powers that allowed him to sack the unpopular general prosecutor and opened the door for a retrial for Mubarak and his aides.
The president’s decree aimed to end the logjam and push Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, more quickly on its democratic path, the presidential spokesman said.
“President Morsi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle,” Yasser Ali told Reuters.
The president said any decrees he issued while no parliament sat could not be challenged, moves that consolidated his powers but look set to polarize Egypt further, threatening more turbulence in a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring.
“The people want to bring down the regime,” shouted protesters in Tahrir, echoing one of the chants that was used in the uprising that forced Mubarak to step down.
UN concerned Morsi hurting human rights
The decree is bound to worry Western allies, particularly the United States, a generous benefactor to Egypt’s army, which effusively praised Egypt for its part in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a ceasefire on Wednesday.
The West may become concerned about measures that, for example, undermine judicial independence. But one Western diplomat said it was too early to judge and his nation would watch how the decree was exercised in the coming days.
“We are very concerned about the possible huge ramifications of this declaration on human rights and the rule of law in Egypt,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, said at the United Nations in Geneva.
“The decree is basically a coup on state institutions and the rule of law that is likely to undermine the revolution and the transition to democracy,” Mervat Ahmed, an independent activist in Tahrir protesting against the decree, said. “I worry Morsi will be another dictator like the one before him.”
Leading liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei, who joined other politicians on Thursday night to demand the decree was withdrawn, wrote on his Twitter account that Morsi had “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh”. source – JPost
