Thousands took to the streets across Egypt Friday to protest President Mohammed Morsi sweeping new powers, the Associated Press reports.
Morsi says these new powers, which include making his decisions exempt from legal challenge, were a temporary attempt to speed up the nation’s transition to a democracy. But the move has caused protests and accusations that Morsi is now a “dictator” and “pharaoh.”
From the AP:
In a sign of deepening polarization, state TV reported that protesters burned offices of the political arm of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group on several cities on the Suez Canal east of Cairo and in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, while Islamists engaged with fistfights with Morsi opponents in southern Egypt.
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy activists meanwhile converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, angered at the decisions by Morsi. The decrees include exempting himself from judicial review, as well as a panel writing the new constitution and the upper house of parliament, and the power to enact any other measure he deemed necessary to deal with a “threat” to Egypt’s “revolution.” …
Outside the capital, the rival groups clashed.
Thousands from the two camps threw stones and chunks of marble at each other outside a mosque in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria after Friday Muslim prayers. Anti-Morsi protesters threw stones and firecrackers at supporters of the Brotherhood, who used prayer rugs to shield themselves.
