CAIRO — Giant crowds of protesters packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square and marched in other cities Friday vowing to stop a draft constitution that Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi approved hours earlier in a rushed, all-night session without the participation of liberals and Christians.
Anger at Morsi even spilled over into a mosque where the Islamist president joined weekly Friday prayers. In his sermon, the mosque’s preacher compared Morsi with Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, saying the prophet had enjoyed vast powers as leader, giving a precedent for the same to happen now.
“No to tyranny!” congregants chanted, interrupting the cleric. Morsi took to the podium and told the worshippers that he too objected to the language of the sheik and that one-man rule contradicts Islam.
Crowds of protesters marched from several locations in Cairo, converging in central Tahrir Square for the opposition’s second mass rally in a week against Morsi. They chanted, “Constitution: Void!” and “The people want to bring down the regime” as fireworks went off.
The crowd appeared comparable in size to the more than 200,000 anti-Morsi protesters who thronged the square Tuesday. Tens of thousands more marched Fridayin Alexandria and other cities.
In contrast to the largely leaderless uprising by youth activists against autocrat Hosni Mubarak last year, a more energized, cohesive leadership has started to emerge in the new campaign against Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. It is made up of a number of prominent liberal, secular and moderate Islamist politicians, notably Nobel laureate Mohamed El-Baradei.
“We are determined to continue with all peaceful means, whatever it takes to defend our legitimate rights,”ElBaradei told the Tahrir Square crowd, saying the draft constitution must be voided.
His ally, senior opposition leader Hamdeen Sabbahi, vowed protests would go on until “we topple the constitution.”
The protests were sparked by the president’s decrees a week ago granting himself sweeping powers and neutralizing the judiciary, the last check on his authority. The edicts tapped into a feeling among many Egyptians that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he is a member, are using their election victories to monopolize power and set up a new oneparty state, nearly two years after the fall of Mubarak.
But the sudden adoption of a draft constitution by the Islamist-dominated assembly that was crafting the document throws the confrontation into a new phase.
The draft must now be put to a nationwide referendum for public approval, likely to be held in mid-December. Morsi is expected today to announce the date. He says his new powers are in effect until the referendum passes.
The Supreme Constitutional Court is to rule Sunday whether to dissolve the constitutional assembly. If it does so, the effect on the draft already adopted by the assembly is unclear.
The past week, clashes between Morsi’s supporters and opponents left two dead and hundreds wounded and raised fears of further chaos.
The Brotherhood and other Islamists plan their own rally backing Morsi today.
The draft constitution has an Islamist bent. It strengthens provisions that set Islamic law as the basis of legislation, gives clerics a still undefined role in ensuring laws meet Shariah and commits the state to enforce morals and “the traditional family” in broad language that rights activists fear could be used to severely limit many civil liberties.
At the same time, it installs new protections for Egyptians against some abuses of the Mubarak era, such as stronger bans on torture and arbitrary arrest. It weakens somewhat what had been the near total powers of the presidency, giving parliament greater authorities.
Almost all liberal and secular members of the assembly had quit in the past weeks to protest what they called Islamists’ hijacking of the drafting process.
As a result, 85 members - almost all Islamists, with no Christians - participated in the session that began Thursday.
The voting ended just after sunrise Friday, to a round of applause from the members.
“This constitution represents the diversity of the Egyptian people. All Egyptians, male and female, will find themselves in this constitution,” said Essam el-Erian, a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But the opposition denounced the vote as a farce.
Rights group Amnesty International said Friday that the adopted text of the constitution has provisions that purport to protect rights but instead “mask new restrictions.”
Meanwhile, the Obama administration declined to criticize Egypt’s draft constitution despite spirited internal debate over whether the document adequately protects women, religious minority groups and dissenting voices.
State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland lamented the lack of consensus in Egypt’s constitution-writing process.
U.S. officials said there were internal debates over whether to criticize the draft constitution for limiting freedom of expression, failing to grant freedom of worship, criminalizing blasphemy and eroding women’s-rights guarantees.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah El Deeb, Lee Keath and Bradley Klapper of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 12/01/2012