Tahrir Square braced for anti-Morsi rally

Clashes between police and demonstrators broke on Cairo’s Tahrir Square early Tuesday as Egypt braced for mass protests against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s controversial edicts granting himself sweeping powers.

A day after Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi declined to rescind decrees granting himself sweeping powers, clashes broke out between police and protesting youths in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as the country braced for demonstrations against the controversial edicts Tuesday.

Teenagers on the outskirts of Cairo’s iconic Square threw rocks at police who responded with tear gas, according to witnesses, even as protest organizers took to the podium urging calm.

Tensions in the world’s most populous Arab nation decree.

In another step to avoid confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled a planned demonstration in Cairo on Tuesday in support of the decrees.
Administration sending out ‘mixed signals’
Monday’s meeting between Morsi and members of the Supreme Judicial Council came amid hints of a possible compromise between the presidency and the judiciary.
On Sunday, Egyptian Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky said he had some reservations about Morsi’s decrees and offered to begin efforts to mediate between the president and the judges.
“The administration is actually sending out mixed signals,” explained FRANCE 24’s Alexander Turnbull, reporting from Cairo. “Ahmed Mekky is one of the president’s top advisors and he was followed by the chairman of the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, who also said he had reservations and thought that the decrees should have been put to a referendum.”
The latest twists in the backlash against the new presidential decrees have turned increasingly legalistic as average Egyptians struggle to comprehend the issues confronting their country’s transition to democracy, according to several analysts.
No parliament, no constitution
Egypt has not had a lower house of parliament - or People’s Assembly - since the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court scrapped the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated body in June.
Following the angry response to his edicts, Morsi has been at pains to note that the measures would be temporary and only valid until a new constitution was in place.
But one of Morsi’s most controversial edicts has been his ruling that no court could dissolve the country’s Constituent Assembly, which is drawing up a new Egyptian constitution.
The rewriting of the new constitution has been a divisive issue, with most non-Islamist members quitting the Constituent Assembly – including representatives of the Coptic Christian Church and the April 6 Youth Movement, which played an influential role in the 2011 uprising.
(Chasity M.)