CAIRO - The panel working to amend Egypt’s constitution after the army’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi began its work Sunday as the military-backed interim leadership forged ahead with its fast-track transition plan aimed at taking the country back to democratic rule.
While appealing for consensus and reconciliation, Egypt’s new government has pushed the transition in the face of opposition fromMorsi’s supporters, who denounce the military coup that overthrew the Islamist leader and reject the new political order that has replaced him.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and his Islamist allies have vowed to stage daily rallies until he is reinstated, setting the stage for further instability and potential violence. The rallies outside military buildings are particularly sensitive: Some 54 people, mostly pro-Morsi demonstrators, were killedwhen soldiers opened fire two weeks ago outside the Republican Guard Club. The military says armed protesters attacked the facility, while the Brotherhood says the soldiers fired on peaceful protesters.
The killings are the bloodiest episode since the military overthrew Morsi, although there have been smaller bouts of violence that have turned deadly, including Friday when three women were killed at a Brotherhood rally in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, sparking anger among the group’s supporters. Egypt’s prosecutor general opened an investigation, and top figures of the new leadership have condemned the killings.
The army cordoned off the road leading to the headquarters of the Defense Ministry in Cairo to prevent a march by Muslim Brotherhood women, protesting the three women’s deaths, from reaching the site, the Middle East News Agency reported Saturday.
“What happened in Mansoura will happen again in the future,” said 35-year-old housewife Nagah Thabit, who was among the protesters out on the streets in support of Morsi on Sunday. “Anybody who will take to the streets in the future, the army will unleash their thugs against them.”
One of the marches Sunday set off toward the U.S. Embassy, but turned back at one of the security barriers that stretch around it for several blocks.
Waving Morsi’s photo, small copies of the Koran and Egyptian flags, protesters chanted, “Morsi is coming back,” and “Oh Sissi wake up, today is your last day!”
“I am here to support the president’s legitimacy and to send a message to the United States to tell them to stop interfering in Egyptian politics,” said Zein el-Abedeen Hassib, 28. “They are the one who prepared” the coup, he said.
Members of all political factions in Egypt accuse the United States of meddling inthe country’s affairs, usually on behalf of their rivals.
Since overthrowing Morsi, security forces have launched a crackdown against the Brotherhood and some of their staunchest supporters. Prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for the group’s leaders for allegedly instigating violence. Morsi himself has been held incommunicado since July 3.
While the protests have snarled traffic in the capital, they have had had little outward impact on the military-guided transition, including the decision to amend the constitution that was contentiously drafted and passed in a referendum during Morsi’s first and only year in office.
POLITICAL TRANSITION
On Sunday, the new 10-member panel of legal experts and senior judges met for the first time to begin drawing up proposed amendments to the constitution. The panel has 30 days to do so. A second 50-member committee then will have 60 days to review those amendments before citizens vote on the new constitution in a referendum.
The 10-person committee has given political parties and other groups a week to present proposals, the state-run Middle East News Agency said Saturday.
“There is no way the transition phase is going to be smooth,” said Ziad Akl, senior analyst at Al AhramCenter for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “It’s very possible that it will be extended, and could be sort of prolonged, until a deal is reached with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Underscoring the political polarization in the country, the April 6 movement, one of the groups that campaigned for Morsi’s ouster, said it will propose a “ban on religious parties,” according to an emailed statement. The clause was included in a charter passed under Hosni Mubarak, who persecuted Islamists during his three-decade rule that ended in the 2011 uprising.
Tamarod, the movement that helped mobilize the street protests that led to Morsi’s removal, has started to collect suggestions from Egyptians on the document, said Islam Hammam, a member of its central committee.
“There’s no way the Muslim Brotherhood are not going to be part of Egypt’s political scene,” Akl said. “What they are doing now by the daily protests is trying to apply political pressure to enhance their position in negotiations.”
The drafting of Egypt’s constitution was one of the most divisive issues during Morsi’s rule. The charter was drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly after liberals walked out twice, complaining that the Brotherhood and its allies were dictating the process. Protests over theconstitution and the direction of the country turned deadly after Morsi issued temporary decrees in late November that put himself and the drafting committee above judicial oversight. The charter was then finalized in a rushed overnight session and passed in a referendum.
Now that Morsi is gone, many of Egypt’s liberals want to remove broadly worded articles introduced by Islamists that give Shariah, or Islamic law, greater weight. But there has been pushback from the ultraconservative Nour Party that backed the military coup.
A senior Nour official, Ashraf Thabit, said the party opposes any plans to amend the so-called identity articles in the suspended constitution that mainly state that legislation is based on Shariah law. The constitution under Mubarak also stipulated that legislation is derived from Shariah.
The Salafi Nour Party has come under heavy criticism from fellow conservative Islamists for turning against Morsi, especially after authorities shut down ultraconservative TV networks that promoted their Salafi branch of Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Misr 25 TV was also shut down.
SINAI VIOLENCE
The crackdown on Islamists has been met with an escalation in violence in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as militants, long active in the area, have intensified their attacks against security forces since the ouster of Morsi.
Coordinated attacks Sunday highlighted the security crisis Egypt’s military-backed interim leaders face in restoring stability after more than two years of turmoil since the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011.
The northern part of Sinai has been the most lawless corner of the country since then. Police stations have been torched and security forces kicked out of tribal areas, where they were notorious for abuses against the powerful tribes of the region.
Three civilians from one family were killed and one was severely wounded whenmilitants attacked an army checkpoint in north Sinai, the state-run Al Ahram newspaper reported Saturday.
In nighttime attacks Sunday, security officials said militants fired automatic weapons at a police club, a police station and a security post outside a bank in the center of El-Arish.
A 25-year-old woman walking in the street near the bank was struck by a bullet and seriously wounded. A soldier outside the bank was killed in the clash, officials said. The bank is on a main square in El-Arish.
Officials said a gun battle raged for several minutes between militants and security forces at the police station. A male driver was killed outside the station when a bullet hit him.
Also at night, a police camp in the city of Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border came under attack by militants, who fired rocket-propelled grenades at the building, wounding four civilians and six soldiers protecting the site.
Earlier on Sunday, three policemen were killed by sniper fire, according to a security official. The coordinated attacks killed police guarding an administrative building, a TV station and a police station in El-Arish, the main city in northern Sinai near the border with Gaza and Israel, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to briefreporters.
Sunday’s deaths push to 14 the number of policemen killed in Sinai since Morsi’s ouster. At least four civilians have been killed, including one woman and two Christians.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Prime Minister Hazem El Beblawi’s interim Cabinet, convening for the first time Saturday, endorsed efforts by security services to restore order, according to an emailed statement that didn’t refer to calls by human rights groups on forces to refrain from using excessive force.
The Cabinet also said that it will prioritize policies thatprotect the poor, without providing details.
El Beblawi inherits record unemployment and a budget deficit that may widen to 12 percent of economic output this year, according to the estimates of 11 analysts on Bloomberg. Economic growth may slow to 2 percent, near the worst pace in two decades, while the inflation, at 9.8 percent in June, is the highest in two years.
Efforts to reduce the budget deficit will go hand in hand with attempts to boost revenue, the Cabinet said Sunday.
The central bank has received a $2 billion interest-free deposit from Saudi Arabia, Al Ahram reported Saturday, citing Central Bank Governor Hisham Ramez. The funds are part of a $12 billion package of pledges by the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, as well as Saudi Arabia.
Off icials in the United Arab Emirates say they have thwarted an attempt by Egypt-based hackers to bring down UAE government websites in apparent retaliation for backing the forces that ousted Morsi.
The UAE has emerged as a leading Arab supporter of the military-led authorities in Egypt since Morsi was toppled. The UAE also is a fierce opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, charging supporters of the Islamist group with plotting to overthrow the UAE’s Western-backed ruling system.
The UAE’s Telecommunications Authority said in a statement Sunday that experts blocked the attempted hacking on Friday, saying it said caused “limited damage.” Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Michael, Tony G. Gabriel, Ashraf Sweilam and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Salma El Wardany, Alaa Shahine, Abdel Latif Wahba and Ahmed Khalilelsayed of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/22/2013