Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
The Egyptian army is beginning to intervene in favor of the public protest against President Mohammed Morsi decision to grant himself far-reaching powers, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday.
According to the report, the "Officers of the Egyptian Army" organization distributed leaflets during Friday's demonstrations saying the protests were "legitimate." However, the army has yet to respond officially to Morsi's decree, which exempts all his decisions from legal challenge until a new parliament is elected.
"We swear to Allah that we are not traitors and do not cooperate with anyone's agendas," the "officers" said in the leaflets. "We are loyal sons of the homeland."
"Egypt is in your hands now," the leaflets read. "We are not seeking positions or a revolt against legitimacy. We swore to protect the homeland with our lives. Now the legitimacy is on your side."
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his seizure of new powers which has set off violent protests reminiscent of last year's revolution which brought him to power. Egypt's stock market plunged on Sunday in its first day open since Mursi issued a decree late on Thursday temporarily widening his powers and shielding his decisions from judicial review, drawing accusations he was behaving like a new dictator.
More than 500 people have been injured in clashes between police and protesters worried Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood aims to dominate the post-Hosni Mubarak era after winning Egypt's first democratic parliamentary and presidential elections this year. One Muslim Brotherhood member was killed and 60 people were hurt on Sunday in an attack on the main office of the Brotherhood in the Egyptian Nile Delta town of Damanhour, the website of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said. Egypt's highest judicial authority hinted at compromise to avert a further escalation, though Mursi's opponents want nothing less than the complete cancellation of a decree they see as a danger to democracy.
The Supreme Judicial Council said Mursi's decree should apply only to "sovereign matters", suggesting it did not reject the declaration outright, and called on judges and prosecutors, some of whom began a strike on Sunday, to return to work. Mursi would meet the council on Monday, state media said. Mursi's office repeated assurances that the measures would be temporary, and said he wanted dialogue with political groups to find "common ground" over what should go in Egypt's constitution, one of the issues at the heart of the crisis. Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, saw an effort by the presidency and judiciary to resolve the crisis, but added their statements were "vague". "The situation is heading towards more trouble," he said.
Sunday's stock market fall of nearly 10 percent - halted only by automatic curbs - was the worst since the uprising that toppled Mubarak in February, 2011. Images of protesters clashing with riot police and tear gas wafting through Cairo's Tahrir Square were an unsettling reminder of that uprising. Activists were camped in the square for a third day, blocking traffic with makeshift barricades. Nearby, riot police and protesters clashed intermittently.
"BACK TO SQUARE ONE"
Egyptian opposition activists have vowed to stage a sit-in in Cairo in a protest against the president's move to grant himself extensive new powers. Crowds of people gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday but had largely dispersed by morning, with reports of police firing tear gas nearby. More than 100 people have been injured in clashes across the country. President Mohammed Mursi says he is leading Egypt to "freedom and democracy".
The decree, issued on Thursday, bans challenges of his decisions and says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution. It also opens the way for a retrial of people convicted of killings during Egypt's 2011 uprising which toppled Mubarak. The US has voiced concern about developments.
'Mursi is Mubarak'
Both supporters and critics of the president demonstrated across the country on Friday. Critics are calling for the constitutional declaration to be reversed, and for the dissolution of the constituent assembly. Overnight, some 20 white tents were pitched in the middle of Cairo's totemic Tahrir Square, the scene of the unrest which ousted long-time President Hosni Mubarak last year. Protest organisers said more than 20 different groups had joined a week-long sit-in against Mr Mursi's reforms, saying the new president is becoming as much of a dictator as Mubarak.
"We are involved in a sit-in because the goals of the revolution have yet to be achieved," said Mira Daniel, whose brother, Coptic activist Mina Daniel, was killed in the 2011 uprising. "We are here because they took a decision to make us die in the square, so we are here to die in the Square. What's happening now is death." However, most people left the square overnight, with dozens of messages on Twitter saying protesters were forced to abandon the camp after being targeted with tear gas.
More BBC News - Egypt activists vow further anti-Mursi protests
By early Tuesday afternoon in Cairo, a dense crowd of hundreds had gathered outside the headquarters of a trade group for lawyers, and thousands more had filed in around a small tent city in Tahrir Square. In an echo of the chants against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians ousted president, almost two years ago, they shouted, Leave, leave! and Bring down the regime! They also denounced the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with Mr. Morsi.
A few blocks away, in a square near the American Embassy and the Interior Ministry headquarters, groups of young men resumed a running battle that began nine days ago, throwing rocks and tear gas canisters at riot police officers. Although those clashes grew out of anger over the deaths of dozens of protesters in similar clashes one year ago, many of the combatants have happily adopted the banner of protest against Mr. Morsi as well.
Egyptian television had captured the growing polarization of the country on Monday in split-screen coverage of two simultaneous funerals, each for a teenage boy killed in clashes set off by disputes over the new presidents powers. Thousands of supporters of Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood marched through the streets of the Nile Delta city of Damanhour to bury a 15-year-old killed outside a Brotherhood office during an attack by protesters. And in Tahrir Square here in Cairo, thousands gathered to bury a 16-year-old killed in clashes with riot police officers and to chant slogans blaming Mr. Morsi for his death. Morsi killed him, the boys father said in a video statement circulated over the Internet.
Now blood has been spilled by political factions, so this is not going to go away, said Rabab el-Mahdi, a professor at the American University in Cairo and a left-leaning activist, adding that these were the first deaths rival factions had blamed on each other and not on the security forces of the Mubarak government since the uprising began last year. Still larger crowds were expected in the evening, as marchers from around the city headed for the square. Many schools and other businesses had closed in anticipation of bedlam, and on Monday, the Brotherhood called off a rival demonstration in support of the president, saying it wanted to avoid violence.
More http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/world/middleeast/egypt-morsi.html?hp&_r=0
Police fired tear gas into a crowd of stone-throwing protesters on a street near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Other demonstrators staged a sit-in at Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests during last year's ouster of Morsi's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. The recent, ongoing protests are not just against Morsi, but also against the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization from which he came. Opposition groups are calling for the brotherhood's spiritual leader to get out of the way. It is a stunning reversal for an organization that spent decades building good will among Egyptians, playing the long game of combining charity work and prayer to win hearts and minds. It largely paid off. In June, its presidential candidate, Morsi, proved to many liberal and secular voters the better choice to lead a post-revolution society.
Morsi granted himself new powers in a November 22 decree, though, that bars the judiciary from challenging his decisions. The president says the decrees are designed to protect state institutions. Morsi later promised the Supreme Judicial Council that he will restrict his newly self-granted powers to "sovereign matters." The vaguely worded statement, however, did not define the issues over which he would have absolute power. In a move that could help resolve the political crisis, the assembly drafting a new constitution said it would complete work Wednesday on a final draft later. Three assembly members said a vote on the draft by the assembly was planned for Thursday. A new constitution would override Morsi's current moves. But many liberals and other opponents of Morsi have in recent weeks ended participation in the assembly, which is dominated by Islamists. They say their voices are not being heard.
Dangerous play
Mustafa el-Labbad, director of the Al Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies, said Morsi is in dangerous political waters. "If Mr. Morsi is not smart enough to step back from his declaration I think it would be a challenge not only for his constitutional declaration but for the whole legitimacy of Mr. Morsi and the legitimacy of the brotherhood," he said. "So it is a game with higher stakes now." When elected, Morsi ended his official ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, promising to be the president of all Egyptians.
American University in Cairo professor Said Sadek said the president's initial steps after taking over from the interim military council showed promise. "Dr. Morsi managed in the first two months to please Egyptians, even the skeptical people who opposed him and people who did not vote to him, by getting rid of the military generals and also taking some symbolic stances just to show that he is independent in his own foreign policy," he said. But the president's pledge to present a diverse executive branch foundered, with key positions on both national and local levels being stacked with members of the Brotherhood.
Judiciary hampered
Morsi finds himself in a position most unstrategic for his power grab.
