Egyptian riot police were deployed yesterday in a bid to separate supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi amid violent confrontations near the presidential palace, a security official said.
The rival camps were still clashing on side streets near the palace in the upscale Cairo neighbourhood of Heliopolis in the evening
Supporters and opponents of the Egyptian President lobbed Molotov cocktails and rocks at each other yesterday as their standoff turned violent in Cairo.
Bloodied protesters were seen being carried away as gunshots could be heard and the fierce political rivals torched cars and set off fireworks, AFP reporters said.
At the heart of the battle is a decree issued by Morsi expanding his powers and allowing him to put to a referendum a disputed constitution drafted by Islamists.
The November 22 constitutional declaration has sparked deadly protests and strikes, but Vice-President Mahmud Mekki said a December 15 referendum on the charter would go ahead as planned.
Around the presidential palace in the upscale neighbourhood of Heliopolis, protesters from both camps fled into side streets.
Skirmishes broke out after thousands of Islamists rallying to the call of the Muslim Brotherhood bore down on the presidential palace, tearing down opposition tents and chanting that they would “cleanse” the area.
The two sides threw stones at each other before the secular-leaning opposition protesters, who had besieged the palace in their tens of thousands on Tuesday, escaped into side streets before regrouping.
But even as the clashes took place outside, Vice-President Mekki told reporters at the Itihadiya palace that the vote “will go ahead on time”. The opposition, he said, would be allowed to put any objections they have to articles of the constitution in writing, to be discussed by a Parliament yet to be elected.
“There is a real political will to respond to the demands of the opposition,” he told journalists.
Prominent opposition leader and former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei said Morsi bore “full responsibility” for the violence and that his regime was losing more legitimacy every day.
Tens of thousands of opposition protesters had encircled the palace on Tuesday demanding that Morsi go, opposing the charter and with some calling for a boycott of the referendum. Islamist rallies converged outside the palace, where hundreds of anti-Morsi protesters had spent the night, forcing the opposition to leave the area.
“They (Islamists) attacked us, broke up our tents, and I was beaten up,” said Eman Ahmed, 47. “They accused us of being traitors.”
Protesters from the male-dominated Islamist marches harassed television news crews, trying to prevent them from working.
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Later yesterday three of President Morsi’s advisers resigned, according to state media.
Amr al-Laythi, Seif Abdel Fattah and Ayman al-Sayyard, all advisers to the Islamist President, had handed in their resignation, Egypt’s official Mena news agency reported.