This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/world/middleeast/egypt-mohamed-morsi-protests.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Morsi’s Concessions Fail to Quiet His Opponents in Egypt Opponents of Egypt’s Leader Call for Boycott of Charter Vote
(about 5 hours later)
CAIRO — Crowds of protesters marched on the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday, registering fresh anger against President Mohamed Morsi’s plan to go ahead with a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution. CAIRO — The political crisis over Egypt’s draft constitution hardened on both sides on Sunday, as President Mohamed Morsi prepared to deploy the army to safeguard balloting in a planned referendum on the new charter and his opponents called for more protests and a boycott to undermine the vote.
With efforts to quell the tensions flagging, Mr. Morsi on Sunday issued an order placing security over government institutions in the hands of the military until after the results of Saturday’s referendum, The Associated Press reported. The order, which will take effect on Monday, also grants soldiers the right to arrest civilians. Thousands of demonstrators streamed toward the presidential palace for a fifth night of protests against Mr. Morsi and the proposed charter, and the president, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, formally issued an order asking the military to protect such “vital institutions” and to secure the vote.
In a concession to the opposition, Mr. Morsi on Saturday rescinded most of a sweeping Nov. 22 decree that temporarily elevated his decisions above judicial review and that had put tens of thousands of protesters into the streets calling for his downfall. He also offered a convoluted arrangement for the factions to negotiate constitutional amendments this week that would be added to the charter after the vote. With the decision to boycott the referendum, the opposition signaled that it had given up hope that it could defeat the draft charter at the polls, and had opted instead to try to undermine the referendum’s legitimacy.
But Mr. Morsi did not budge on a critical demand: that he postpone the referendum set for Saturday to allow a thorough overhaul of the proposed charter, which liberal groups say has inadequate protection of individual rights and provisions that could someday give Muslim religious authorities new influence. His decision Sunday to deploy the military, which has been widely interpreted an imposing martial law, seemed to indicate his resolve. The call for new protests — with major demonstrations expected at the presidential palace again on Tuesday and Friday — ensures that questions about Egypt’s national unity and stability will continue to overshadow debate about the specific contents of the charter. Opponents say the proposed constitution, rushed through an assembly dominated by Islamist allies of the president, fails to adequately protect individual and minority rights and opens the door to greater religious influence over the state.
Some opposition leaders vowed to continue the fight to derail the referendum, including the National Salvation Front, which announced that it would meet to decide on a course of action, The A.P. reported. Over the past two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets to oppose the charter, crowds have attacked 28 Muslim Brotherhood offices and the group’s headquarters, and at least seven people have died in clashes between Islamist and secular political factions.
“We are against this process from start to finish,” a spokesman of the National Salvation Front, Hussein Abdel Ghani, said Sunday, according to Reuters. He called for more street protests on Tuesday. The opposition “rejects lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division,” said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for a coalition that calls itself the National Salvation Front. Holding a referendum “in a state of seething and chaos,” Mr. Ashour said, amounted to “a reckless and flagrant absence of responsibility, risking driving the country into violent confrontations that endanger its national security.”
“We have broken the barrier of fear: a constitution that aborts our rights and freedoms is one that we will bring down today before tomorrow,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former diplomat now acting as coordinator of the secular opposition, wrote on Twitter early Sunday. “Our power is in our will.” Whether to ask voters to vote no or to stay home has been the subject of heated debate in opposition circles in the week since Mr. Morsi announced the referendum, to be held on Saturday.
In recent days, protesters have attacked more than two dozen Muslim Brotherhood offices and ransacked the group’s headquarters, and more than seven people have died in street fighting between Islamists and their opponents. Now the question is whether opponents can translate the energy of the protests against the charter into more votes and seats in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place two months after the referendum.
The moves over the weekend offered little hope of fully resolving the standoff, in part because opposition leaders had ruled out — even before his concessions were announced — any rushed attempt at a compromise just days before the referendum. Both sides acknowledge that President Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, has hurt himself and his party politically with the act that first touched off the protests: a decree giving himself authoritarian powers and putting his decisions above the reach of judicial review until the new charter is passed. He suffered even more, they say, when the backlash against the decree and the new constitution led to a night of clashes between his Islamists supporters and their more secular opponents that left at least six dead and hundreds more injured.
“No mind would accept dialogue at gunpoint,” said Mohamed Abu El Ghar, an opposition leader, alluding to previously floated ideas about last-minute talks for constitutional amendments. Mr. Morsi surprised his critics after midnight on Sunday by withdrawing almost all the provisions of his decree, a step he said he took on the recommendation of about 40 politicians and thinkers he convened on Saturday for a “national dialogue” meant to resolve the crisis. Leading opposition figures were invited to take part, but nearly all declined; according to a list broadcast on state television, most of the attendees were Islamists of various stripes, and the only prominent secular politician on hand was the former presidential candidate Ayman Nour.
Nor did Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies expect his proposals to succeed. Many said they had concluded that much of the secular opposition was primarily interested in obstructing the transition to democracy at all costs, to try to block the Islamists from winning elections. Instead, some of the president’s supporters privately relished the bind they believed Mr. Morsi had built for the opposition by giving in to some demands, forcing their secular opponents to admit they are afraid to take their case to the ballot box. A spokesman for the group said at an authorized news conference that, Mr. Morsi was issuing a new, more limited decree that would give immunity from judicial scrutiny only to “constitutional declarations,” a narrow if hazily defined category of actions. His actions under the previous decree would also be protected, including dismissal of the public prosecutor appointed under Hosni Mubarak.
Soon after the state newspaper Al Ahram suggested on Saturday that the president would impose martial law, a military spokesman read a statement over state television that echoed Mr. Morsi’s own speeches. Through the spokesman for the “national dialogue” group, Mohamed Salim el-Awa, Mr. Morsi even signaled a willingness to allow his opponents and allies to negotiate a package of amendments to the constitution that all sides would agree to enact once the draft is approved.
The military “realizes its national responsibility for maintaining the supreme interests of the nation and securing and protecting the vital targets, public institutions and the interests of the innocent citizens,” the spokesman said, warning of “divisions that threaten the State of Egypt.” But Mr. Morsi did not concede to the opposition’s main demand: to postpone the referendum long enough for an overhaul of the draft. Although international experts who have studied it say the document is hardly more religious or Islamist than Egypt’s old constitution, liberals in Egypt say it contains insufficient safeguards against a future Islamist majority rolling back individual rights.
“Dialogue is the best and sole way to reach consensus that achieves the interests of the nation and the citizens,” he added. “Anything other than that puts us in a dark tunnel with drastic consequences, which is something that we will not allow.” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former diplomat who now acts as a coordinator of the secular opposition, was the first to fire back on Sunday, resorting again to the language of revolution.
Mr. Morsi’s announcement on Saturday about using the military for security marked the steepest escalation yet in the political battle between Egypt’s new Islamist leaders and their secular opponents over the draft constitution. “We have broken the barrier of fear: A constitution that aborts our rights and freedoms is one that we will bring down today, before tomorrow,” Mr. ElBaradei wrote in a Twitter posting early on Sunday. “Our power is in our will.”
The president said he issued the Nov. 22 decree that set off the crisis to prevent the Mubarak-era courts from dissolving the constitutional assembly and upending the transition to democracy. The terms of his concession were ill-defined; the new decree Mr. Morsi issued Saturday night said he retained the limited authority to issue “constitutional declarations” protecting the draft charter that judges could not overturn. Although the plan for martial law outlined in Al Ahram would not fully suspend civil law, it would nonetheless have the effect of suspending legal rights by empowering soldiers under the control of the defense minister to try civilians in military courts. As his proposed compromise faded and tensions mounted on Sunday, Mr. Morsi followed through on plans announced the day before to authorize the military to protect national institutions and polling places. His order, printed in the official gazette on Sunday, amounts to a form of martial law, because it will allow soldiers under the direction of the defense minister to arrest civilians under a military code of justice.
Calling in the army could overcome the danger of protests or violence that might disrupt the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow. But resorting to the military to secure the vote could also undermine Mr. Morsi’s hopes that a strong showing for the constitution would be seen as a sign of national consensus that could help end the political crisis. The move indicated that, at least in the short term, Egypt’s powerful military was lining up behind the new Islamist president to complete the transition to a new constitution. The apparent alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military reverses 60 years of mutual hostility, and it is likely to disappoint some Egyptians who fear the Islamists and had begun to whisper that the military might remove Mr. Morsi from power.
Brotherhood officials cheered the military’s statements, noting they closely resembled the president’s own speeches about a “national dialogue” and moving forward toward democracy. One person close to Mr. Morsi said the president issued the order so that troops could secure the voting process, as they have done in each of Egypt’s elections since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak. Islamists, including some around Mr. Morsi, have become increasingly distrustful of the Interior Ministry, whose police forces have failed to stop attacks on Muslim Brotherhood offices or vandalism outside the presidential palace.
But Moataz Abdel-Fattah, a former adviser to Egypt’s transitional prime minister who is close to Defense Minister Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, said that the military also sought to make clear it was not joining either camp. But Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak who is now an opposition leader, said it may have been the military’s idea, not the president’s, to issue the authorization, and with it a veiled warning. “Everybody — all of us in civil society — are getting really disturbed by this very serious situation,” he said. “Everybody is upset, and that extends into the army.”
After taking office, Mr. Morsi spent months courting the generals, sometimes earning the derision of liberal activists for his public flattery of their role. And the constitution his supporters eventually drew up included protections of the military’s autonomy and privileges within the Egyptian government, despite the protests of the same activists.After taking office, Mr. Morsi spent months courting the generals, sometimes earning the derision of liberal activists for his public flattery of their role. And the constitution his supporters eventually drew up included protections of the military’s autonomy and privileges within the Egyptian government, despite the protests of the same activists.
Those provisions suggested an understanding between the military and Mr. Morsi that may now allow him to call on the generals’ help. Those provisions suggested an understanding between the military and Mr. Morsi that may now allow him to call on the generals’ help. Under the president’s planned martial law order, the military would return to its barracks after parliamentary elections, according to Al Ahram, a state-run newspaper.
Under the president’s planned martial law order, Al Ahram said, the military would return to its barracks after parliamentary elections, which are expected to take place two months after the referendum if the constitution is approved.
If the military does secure the polls, that would appear to undermine the opposition’s argument that the latest unrest had all but ruled out this week’s referendum.If the military does secure the polls, that would appear to undermine the opposition’s argument that the latest unrest had all but ruled out this week’s referendum.
“Under the present circumstance, how can you conduct a referendum or an election when chaos is reigning and you have protests everywhere?” Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak and now an opposition leader, asked in an interview Saturday. “Under the present circumstance, how can you conduct a referendum or an election when chaos is reigning and you have protests everywhere?” Mr. Moussa asked in an interview on Saturday.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from New York.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from New York.