Egypt unrest widens with strikes set today

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

— Egypt’s political crisis is widening, with plans for a huge march and a general strike today to protest the hurried drafting of a new constitution and decrees by President Mohammed Morsi that gave him nearly unrestricted powers.

Morsi also faces the prospect of wider civil disobedience as media, the tourism industry and law professors pondered moves that would build on a strike by the nation’s judges.

The planned strikes and march raise new fears of unrest, threatening to derail the country’s transition to democratic rule.

“Egypt is a big ship in high seas, and no one should stop its captain from taking it to the shore,” said Morsi’s legal adviser, Mohammed Gaballah, defending his boss.

“The ship must keep moving under any conditions,” he said Monday.

The country’s judges have already gone on strike over Morsi’s Nov. 22 decrees that placed him above oversight of any kind, including the courts. After those decrees, a panel dominated by the president’s Islamist supporters rushed through a draft constitution without the participation of representatives of liberals and Christians. Only four women,all Islamists, attended the marathon, all-night session.

Morsi has called for a Dec. 15 national referendum to approve the constitution.

An opposition coalition dominated by the liberal and leftist groups that led last year’s uprising had already called for a general strike today and a large demonstration against the constitutional process and Morsi’s decrees.

Newspapers plan to suspend publication, and privately owned TV networks will blacken their screens all day.

Monday’s front pages of Egypt’s most prominent newspapers said, “No to dictatorship” on a black background, with a picture of a man wrapped in newspaper and with his feet shackled while he squatted in a prison cell.

Hotels and restaurants are considering turning off their lights for a half-hour to protest against Morsi, according to the Supporting Tourism Coalition, an independent body representing industry employees.

Cairo University law professors petitioned their dean to let them stop teaching.

Morsi’s moves have plunged an already polarized Egypt in the worst political crisis since the uprising that ousted authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak.

It has divided the countryinto two camps: Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, as well as another ultraconservative Islamist group, the Salafis, versus youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public.

The opposition brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Nov. 27 and a comparable number on Nov. 30, demanding that Morsi’s decrees be rescinded. Protesters have camped out in the square for 10 days and planned a rally at the presidential palace today.

The Islamists responded by sending hundreds of thousands of supporters into Cairo’s twin city of Giza on Saturday. Thousands took to the streets and imposed a siege on Egypt’s highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The court had been widely expected Sunday to declare the constitutional assembly that passed the draft charter to be illegitimate and to disband parliament’s upper house, the Shura Council. Instead, the judges went on strike after they found their building under siege by protesters.

Three of Morsi’s aides have resigned over his decrees. Two members of the official National Council of Human Rights quit Monday, describing the decrees as “disastrous.” They expressed “real fears” of Brotherhood hegemony in Egypt.

The draft constitution has been criticized for not protecting the rights of women and minority groups. Critics say it empowers Islamic religious clerics by giving them a say over legislation, while some articles were seen as tailored to get rid of Islamists’ enemies.

The draft has a new article that seeks to define the principles of Islamic law by pointing to theological doctrines and their rules. Another new article states that Egypt’s most respected Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, must be consulted on any matters related to Shariah law, a measure critics fear could lead to oversight of legislation by clerics.

Rights groups have said that virtually the only references to women relate to the home and family, that the new charter uses overly broad language with respect to the state protecting “ethics and morals,” and that it fails to outlaw gender discrimination.

The powerful judges’ union said Sunday that they would not oversee the referendum, as is customary - a move that would raise questions on the vote’s legitimacy.

On Monday, however, the powerful Supreme Judiciary Council agreed to oversee the voting in a step that legal experts described as “routine.”

Front Section, Pages 5 on 12/04/2012