Clashes between protesters and security forces continued for a seventh day around Tahrir Square, as the Armed Forces constructed a concrete wall on Qasr al-Aini Street by the Shura Council in an attempt to prevent protesters from reaching the Cabinet and People’s Assembly buildings.
Protesters, who rallied before the American University in Cairo, hurled stones at security forces, who fired teargas and attempted to drive protesters toward Tahrir. Clashes also broke out around the American Embassy in Garden City.
The fighting began last Monday after a rally commemorating the November 2011 clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, when security forces killed 45 protesters while violently dispersing an anti-military council sit-in at Tahrir Square.
Protesters chanted against the government on Sunday. A field hospital set up on Talaat Harb Street reported that many protesters have suffered from asphyxia due to the tear gas.
Meanwhile, protesters affiliated with a number of political movements pitched tents in Tahrir Square for a sit-in against President Mohamed Morsy’s constitutional declaration granting himself immunity from judicial challenges and preventing the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the Shura Council.
Morsy on Thursday also dismissed Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud and replaced him with Talaat Abdallah, while ordering the retrial of Mubarak regime figures implicated in killing protesters during the 25 January revolution.
Representatives from the Constitution Party, the Free Egyptians Party, the Popular Current, the Wafd Party, and the Free Front for Peaceful Change are among the participants in the sit-in.
Waleed Nasr, a member of the Constitution Party’s secretariat in Daqahlia who is protesting in Tahrir, said, “We’ve been protesting since yesterday against the constitutional declaration, which makes a new dictator or a pharaoh out of the president.”
Free Egyptians Party member Naguib Abadeer said that the protest is ongoing and that civil forces have agreed to support Constitution Party chief Mohamed ElBaradei and former presidential hopefuls Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi as a united leadership that faces “the fierce attack against legitimacy and the constitution.”
“This protest will be more meaningful than other protests staged under rule of the military council, because this protest is supported by civil political forces as well as un-politicized protesters,” he added.
Tareq al-Tohami, head of Wafd Party’s youth committee, said political forces participating in the protest have agreed to focus on the demands of canceling the new constitutional declaration and dissolving the Constituent Assembly.
“We agreed with civil forces to call for a protest on Tuesday in Tahrir Square. We’ll work on highlighting problems with the current regime during the coming days,” he added. “If our demands are not met, we will escalate to demand the resignation of the president.”
Edited translation from MENA
