Officers
fired teargas at up to 10,000 demonstrators angered by Mursi’s drive to
hold a referendum on a new constitution on 15 December. Some broke
through police lines around his palace and protested next to the
perimeter wall.
The crowds had gathered nearby in what organizers had
dubbed “last warning” protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents
with a 22 November decree that expanded his powers. “The people want the
downfall of the regime,” the demonstrators 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 departed.
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.
Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, the Islamist president has shown no sign of buckling under pressure.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.
Protesters later surrounded the palace, with some climbing on gates at the rear to look down into the gardens.At one point, people clambered onto a police armoured vehicle and waved flags, while riot police huddled nearby.The health ministry said 18 people had been injured in clashes next to the palace, according to the state news agency.
Yearning for stability
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 his supporters, with a referendum planned for 15
December.
They say the draft constitution does not reflect the
interests of Egypt’s liberals and other groups, an accusation dismissed
by Islamists who insist it is a balanced document.
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.”
But 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 US ally whose 1979 peace treaty with Israel is a cornerstone
of Washington’s Middle East policy.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, which staged a
huge pro-Mursi rally in Cairo on Saturday, are confident enough members
of the judiciary will be available to oversee the mid-December
referendum, despite calls by some judges for a boycott.
“The crisis we have suffered for two weeks is on its way
to an end, and very soon, God willing,” Saad al-Katatni, leader of the
Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Cairo stocks closed up 3.5% as investors took heart at
what they saw as prospects for a return to stability after the
referendum in a country whose divisions have only widened since a mass
uprising toppled Mubarak on 11 February 2011.
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