21:10
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CAIRO: Tens of thousands of demonstrators Tuesday encircled the presidential palace after riot police failed to keep them at bay with tear gas, in a growing crisis over President Mohamed Mursi’s decree widening his powers.
The protesters cut through barbed wire erected a few hundred metres (yards) from the palace, prompting police to fire the tear gas before retreating, allowing demonstrators to reach the palace walls, AFP correspondents said.
Mursi himself was not in the palace, a presidential source told AFP.
Protesters surrounded the palace on at least three sides. The demonstrators, many from liberal and leftist political movements, banged on lamp posts as others chanted “leave” in a thunderous show of force.
Tuesday’s protest is the latest in a string of action opposed to Mursi’s decree which expanded his powers and enabled him to rush through a draft constitution contested by liberals, leftists and Christians.
The demonstrators waved Egyptian flags, chanting for the downfall of the regime and denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mursi emerged, for having “sold the revolution” that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.
The protesters cut through barbed wire erected a few hundred metres (yards) from the palace, prompting police to fire the tear gas before retreating, allowing demonstrators to reach the palace walls, AFP correspondents said.
Mursi himself was not in the palace, a presidential source told AFP.
Protesters surrounded the palace on at least three sides. The demonstrators, many from liberal and leftist political movements, banged on lamp posts as others chanted “leave” in a thunderous show of force.
Tuesday’s protest is the latest in a string of action opposed to Mursi’s decree which expanded his powers and enabled him to rush through a draft constitution contested by liberals, leftists and Christians.
The demonstrators waved Egyptian flags, chanting for the downfall of the regime and denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mursi emerged, for having “sold the revolution” that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.
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