Teenager killed, 40 injured in Egypt riot as Morsi plans to meet judges over power grab

National Post Wire Services | Nov 25, 2012 5:26 PM ET | Last Updated: Nov 25, 2012 5:30 PM ET
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The Associated Press / Egyptian Presidency President Mohammed Morsi speaks to supporters outside the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt on Friday. Egypt's official news agency says that the country's highest body of judges has called the president's recent decrees an "unprecedented assault on the independence of the judiciary and its rulings."

 

Security officials say rioters have stormed a Muslim Brotherhood headquarters building in northern Egypt, and a teenage protester was killed.

It was the first death in three days of street battles after a power grab by the country’s president.
A 15-year-old died and 40 people were injured in the clash between protesters and police late Sunday in the town of Damanhoor in the Nile delta, according to security officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The demonstrators are protesting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s decree granting himself immunity from judicial review as well as other measures neutralizing the judges.

Egypt’s stock market plummeted nearly 10 percent on Sunday, the first day of trading since Morsi’s assumption of extra powers.

Morsi 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 Morsi 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.

Asmaa Waguih / Reuters   General view of tents in Tahrir square as protesters and activists continue 

with their sit-in, in Cairo on Sunday.

 

More than 500 people have been injured in clashes between police and protesters worried Morsi’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 Morsi’s opponents want nothing less than the complete cancellation of a decree they see as a danger to democracy.

The Supreme Judicial Council said Morsi’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.

REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

 Protesters run from the riot police during clashes at Tahrir square in Cairo November 25, 2012. 

 

Morsi would meet the council on Monday, state media said.

Morsi’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.

AFP PHOTO / GIANLUIGI GUERCIAGIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images   Protesters throw 

branches on a bone fire as they clash with Egyptian riot policemen at Simon Bolivar square on 

November 25, 2012 in Cairo. Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood called nationwide demonstrations 

today in support of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in his showdown with the judges over the path 

to a new constitution.

Morsi’s supporters and opponents plan big demonstrations on Tuesday that could be a trigger for more street violence.

“We are back to square one, politically, socially,” said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm.

Morsi’s decree marks an effort to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. It reflects his suspicions of a judiciary little reformed since the Mubarak era.

Issued just a day after Morsi received glowing tributes from Washington for his work brokering a deal to end eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas, the decree drew warnings from the West to uphold democracy. Washington has leverage because of billions of dollars it sends in annual military aid.

“The United States should be saying this is unacceptable,” former presidential nominee John McCain, leading Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Fox News.

“We thank Mr. Morsi for his efforts in brokering the ceasefire with Hamas … But this is not what the United States of America’s taxpayers expect. Our dollars will be directly related to progress toward democracy.”

The Morsi administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms that will complete Egypt’s democratic transformation. Yet leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

“There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says ‘let us split the difference’,” prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday.

Investors had grown more confident in recent months that a legitimately elected government would help Egypt put its economic and political problems behind it. The stock market’s main index had risen 35 percent since Morsi’s victory. It closed on Sunday at its lowest level since July 31.

Political turmoil also raised the cost of government borrowing at a treasury bill auction on Sunday.
“Investors know that Morsi’s decisions will not be accepted and that there will be clashes on the street,” said Osama Mourad of Arab Financial Brokerage.

REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany   Protesters run from the riot police during clashes at Tahrir 

square in Cairo November 25, 2012. 

 

Just last week, investor confidence was helped by a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund over a $4.8 billion loan needed to shore up state finances.

Morsi’s decree removes judicial review of decisions he takes until a new parliament is elected, expected early next year.

It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened it with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.

“I am really afraid that the two camps are paving the way for violence,” said Nafaa. “Morsi has misjudged this, very much so. But forcing him again to relinquish what he has done will appear a defeat.”

Many of Morsi’s political opponents share the view that Egypt’s judiciary needs reform, though they disagree with his methods. Morsi’s new powers allowed him to sack the prosecutor general who took his job during the Mubarak era and is unpopular among reformists of all stripes.