Clashes between protesters and security forces on Mohamed Mahmoud Street have resumed Friday morning for the fifth consecutive day.
Protesters gathered in front of the Lycee al-Horreya school at the beginning of the street, which has been looted and burned according to reports on Thursday. They hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the security forces inside the school, who were also throwing stones and firing tear gas canisters at protesters in an attempt to force them back into Tahrir Square.
Sporadic confrontations are still ongoing ahead of anticipated mass protests against the constitutional declaration announced by President Mohamed Morsy late Thursday night.
Justice Minister Ahmed Mekki accused the protesters of ignorance, and described those who called for protests as “either idiots or liars who don’t feel the nation’s pains.”
In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency on Friday, Mekki reassured citizens saying that judges will never neglect their duty of supervising elections and referendum on constitution. On Thursday judges had been threatening to strike in protest against what they perceived to be Morsy’s judicial power grab.
Edited translation of MENA
