Protests in Cairo as Egypt adopts charter

Thousands of protesters rallied in Cairo on Friday as the opposition piled pressure on President Mohamed Morsi after a panel rushed through a draft constitution seen as undermining basic freedoms. Marches led by opposition figures set off from several Cairo districts to join the protesters in Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. The Islamist-dominated assembly, tasked with drafting a new charter to replace the one suspended after Mubarak's ouster, approved the draft early Friday morning after an almost 24 hour-long session boycotted by liberals and Christians. The panel's head, Hossam el-Ghiriani, said a delegation from the Constituent Assembly would visit Morsi on Saturday to present him the draft constitution. Morsi is expected to call for a referendum within two weeks. Rights activists say the charter undermines freedoms of women and religious minorities while the opposition says it was rushed through to force an early referendum. The constitution has taken centre stage in the country's worst political crisis since Morsi's election in June, squaring largely Islamist forces against liberal opposition groups. The crisis was sparked when Morsi issued a decree on November 22 giving himself sweeping powers and placing his decisions beyond judicial review. His decree also prevented the constitutional court from ruling on the constituent assembly's legality, as it was meant to do on Sunday. A court had disbanded an earlier constituent assembly. A coalition of leading dissidents formed in protest at the decree has warned that an ongoing judicial strike could escalate into mass civil disobedience. The strike, called by the top Cassation Court and several other courts in protest at the decree, could place the referendum itself in jeopardy, if judges who normally supervise elections refuse to grant the vote legitimacy. Rights activists have lambasted the draft charter, with the Human Rights Watch advocacy group saying it "protects some rights but undermines others". "Rushing through a draft while serious concerns about key rights protections remain unaddressed will create huge problems down the road that won’t be easy to fix," the US organisation's Middle East director Joe Stork said in a statement. The draft retained a vague Mubarak-era constitution article stating that the "principles of Islamic law" are the main source of legislation. But it added a new provision explaining that the principles of Islamic law were to be interpreted according to the tenets of Sunni Islamic rulings, a clause that Christian churches have opposed. The draft also allows that state a role in "protecting ethics and morals" and bans "insulting humans", which rights activists say could censor political criticism of the president. Nobel Laureate and opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei slammed the draft, saying "it's fate will be the dustbin of history" in a television interview. Several private newspapers announced that they would not appear on the street next Tuesday to protest what they consider to be a lack of press guarantees in the new charter. Abdallah Sennawi, a member of the Committee to Defend Freedom of Expression and Thought, said private television channels would follow suit on Wednesday. In a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Thursday night, Morsi repeated that his new powers, in which he can make decisions beyond judicial review, will expire once the constitution is ratified. "This constitutional declaration is temporary, and it will end once the people have approved the constitution." Morsi told state television on Thursday. A senior member of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Islamists' end game was to put the referendum to vote to grant Morsi's decision democratic legitimacy. The movement is confident of its vote gathering skills after decades of grass roots work unrivalled by any other movement in the country, and believes it could also win parliamentary elections scheduled after the constitutional referendum.