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Police Crack Down on Egyptian Protest Against Constitution Police Crack Down on Egyptian Protest Against Constitution
(about 4 hours later)
CAIRO — Egyptian riot police fired tear gas Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators who were converging on the presidential palace here in Cairo to protest the country’s new draft constitution, which was rushed to completion last week by an assembly dominated by Islamists. CAIRO — Riot police officers fired brief rounds of tear gas on Tuesday night at tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the presidential palace protesting the Islamist-backed draft constitution. It was the clearest evidence yet that the new charter has only widened the divisions that have plagued Egypt since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.
After firing one round of gas canisters, the police quickly retreated inside the walls of the palace grounds, apparently to avoid further clashes. In solidarity with the demonstrations, 11 newspapers stopped publication for the day on Tuesday to protest limits on the new constitution’s protections for freedom of expression. At least three private television networks said they would go dark on Wednesday. And by Tuesday night, demonstrators had also filled Tahrir Square and taken to the streets in Alexandria, Suez and several other cities around the country.
The huge scale of the protests on Tuesday dealt a blow to the legitimacy of the new charter, which goes before the country’s voters in a referendum scheduled for Dec. 15. President Mohamed Morsi’s supporters say the constitution establishes a new democracy, not a theocracy. But while it does not impose religious rule, his opponents say, it does not preclude it either. They say it contains major loopholes in individual liberties, could enable Muslim religious authorities to wield new influence, and still leaves too much power in the hands of the president.
The secular and anti-Islamist groups that organized the protests say that the draft constitution allows religious authorities too much influence over the Egyptian state and have even likened it to the blueprints drawn up for Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini before the 1979 revolution there. “It seeks to impose a one-sided religious extremist national identity, contrary to Egypt’s moderate character and openness to the world,” a coalition of secular opposition groups declared Tuesday in a 32-point analysis of the constitution’s over 200 articles.
Protest organizers are still debating whether to urge Egyptians to vote against the constitution or to boycott the referendum entirely. Either way, many have their eyes on elections for a new Parliament that would be held two months after the constitution is approved. They hope to capitalize on a public backlash against the heavy-handed tactics employed in the constitution-drafting process by President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies to gain seats in the new Parliament and diminish the Islamists’ political power. The first Parliament elected after the overthrow of the strongman Hosni Mubarak was dominated by Islamists, but that body was dissolved by the courts, and Mr. Morsi has been governing by decree since then. Still, the document promises an end to nearly two years of tumultuous transition, and the odds are against blocking its ratification when it comes up for an up-or-down vote on Dec. 15, many in the opposition acknowledge. But Mr. Morsi’s opponents hope that their campaign to defeat the draft might at least narrow its margin of approval.
The country’s private media outlets mounted a protest of their own against the draft constitution’s limits on freedom of expression. Eleven newspapers withheld publication on Tuesday, and at least three private television networks said they would not broadcast on Wednesday. “You are reading this message because Egypt Independent objects to continued restrictions on media liberties, especially after hundreds of Egyptians gave their lives for freedom and dignity,” declared a short statement set against a black background on the Web site of Egypt Independent, the English-language sister publication of the country’s largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm, on Tuesday morning. (By the afternoon, the Web site was back to normal.) They hope to carry that momentum into parliamentary elections in two months, and hurt the Islamists’ chances at the polls. Last year Islamists won about three-quarters of the seats in the parliamentary elections, before a court dissolved the chamber.
The one-day blackout and the mass march in Cairo were the most pointed actions yet in a push by liberal and secular groups to block the draft constitution, which was approved on Friday by the Islamist-dominated assembly despite the boycotts and objections of almost all its non-Islamist delegates. Protesters turned out on Tuesday for the third day in the last two weeks to protest against Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Marchers recycled slogans from the revolt against Mr. Mubarak but turned them against Mr. Morsi and the Islamists. “Bread, freedom and bring down the Brotherhood!” some chanted. “Shave your beard, show your disgrace, you will find that you have Mubarak’s face!”
Mr. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has sought to claim authority above any judicial review so that his Islamist allies could get the constitution through quickly, an act that itself prompted loud protests. Mr. Morsi argued that he needed the powers to overcome potential obstructions from judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak, the deposed president, or from secular opponents who he said were seeking to derail the transition to democracy. When the crowds reached the palace around 6 p.m., they pushed briefly against police barricades set up in the surrounding streets, and the officers responded with short volleys of tear gas. But the riot police then retreated behind the palace walls, apparently to avoid further clashes.
His opponents say the Islamists are trying to ram through a flawed constitution that will allow them to push Egyptian society in the direction of religious conservatism. Around the same time two rows of riot police officers stood guard so that Mr. Morsi’s motorcade could make its exit to his suburban home. “Coward!” they chanted. “Leave!” The crowd looted a guard house covered the palace walls with graffiti mocking either Mr. Morsi, the Brotherhood, or other Islamists.
Among other criticisms, analysts and human rights groups say the draft contains loopholes that could eviscerate its provisions for freedom of expression. Although it ostensibly declares a right to free speech, the constitution also expressly prohibits “insults” to “religious prophets.” But if the protests showcased the outrage of Mr. Morsi’s opponents, it did not suggest widespread defections from among his core supporters. The crowd appeared relatively affluent compared with those at the usual Tahrir Square protests here, to say nothing of the Islamist rallies. There was an unusually high concentration of women, especially for an event after dark, and very few traditional Islamic headscarves. Interviews suggested a heavy representation from Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, who fear marginalization under the Muslim Brotherhood.
The charter declares that one purpose of the news media is to uphold public morality and the “true nature of the Egyptian family,” and it specifies that government authorization will be required to operate a television station or a Web site. The relative affluence of the crowd “is a good thing,” said Farid Beshay, a 29-year-old Christian. “This is not a revolt of the poor. This is people coming to demand their rights.”
The newspapers that shut down for the day said their action was aimed specifically at the draft constitution’s failure to protect free expression. “You are reading this message because Egypt Independent objects to continued restrictions on media liberties, especially after hundreds of Egyptians gave their lives for freedom and dignity,” a short statement set against a black background declared Tuesday morning on the Web site of Egypt Independent, the English-language sister publication of the country’s largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm.
That paper and 10 others did not publish. Among other criticisms, analysts and human rights groups say the draft all but eviscerates its provisions for freedom of expression, in part by also expressly prohibiting “insults” to any living individual or to religious “prophets.”
The draft charter also stipulates that a purpose of the news media is to uphold public morality and the “true nature of the Egyptian family,” and specifies that government authorization may be required to operate a television station or a Web site.
“The protection of freedom of expression is fatally undermined by all the provisions that limit it,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has studied the text. “On paper, they have not protected freedom of expression. It is designed to let the government limit those rights on the basis of ‘morality’ or the vague concept of ‘insult.’ ”“The protection of freedom of expression is fatally undermined by all the provisions that limit it,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has studied the text. “On paper, they have not protected freedom of expression. It is designed to let the government limit those rights on the basis of ‘morality’ or the vague concept of ‘insult.’ ”
What’s more, critics say, the push to ratify the draft coincides with a cascade of accusations from Egypt’s new Islamist leaders that elements of the media are biased against them, and even that they are part of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to thwart the transition to democracy rather than let Islamists win. The Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram on Tuesday  reported that at least 60 of its own journalists had joined the protest marches — a sign that could be taken as a notable endorsement of the cause, or a measure of how much has already changed since Mr. Mubarak’s exit.
As part of a decree expanding his own powers until the passage of the constitution, Mr. Morsi recently passed a law for “protection of the revolution” that covered crimes including insults to the president, the Parliament or the courts. And he created a specially designated circuit within the court system to try those suspected of violating the law, along with those accused of abuses against civilians under the Mubarak government.
Mr. Morsi’s justice minister has already initiated investigations against at least three journalists for insulting the judiciary — the branch of government with the most crucial role in protecting the free press, said Ms. Morayef of Human Rights Watch.
“You are calling insulting the authorities a crime against the revolution?” she said. “That is authoritarianism. That is a lack of understanding of what ‘free expression’ means.”
The Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram reported that at least 60 of its own journalists had joined a march to protest the constitutional restrictions.
Advisers to Mr. Morsi counter that the draft constitution expands on the negligible protections of free expression that prevailed under Mr. Mubarak, and noted that in one of his few previous presidential decrees, Mr. Morsi acted to support media freedom. In the Mubarak era, insulting the president was a crime punishable by imprisonment. But after a newspaper editor was jailed for that offense in late August, Mr. Morsi changed the law to forbid incarceration until a court verdict, allowing the imprisoned journalist, Islam Afifi of Al Dustour, to go free without spending even a night behind bars.
Adding to the suspense, a top Egyptian court on Tuesday postponed an expected session to consider the legitimacy of Mr. Morsi’s expansion of his powers until passage of the constitution.
And his party issued a statement warning prominent leaders of the secular opposition that it would hold them responsible for any acts of violence that occurred. It directed the warning at three former presidential candidates: Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Hamdeen Sabahi, a Nasserite party leader; and Amr Moussa, a foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.