CAIRO — Egypt’s president declared a state of emergency and curfew in three Suez Canal provinces hit hardest by a weekend wave of unrest that left more than 50 dead, using tactics of the ousted regime to get a grip on discontent over his Islamist policies and the slow pace of change.
Angry and almost screaming, Mohammed Morsi vowed in a televised address on Sunday night that he would not hesitate to take even more action to stem the latest violence across much of the country. But at the same time, Morsi sought to reassure Egyptians that his latest moves would not plunge the country back into authoritarianism.
“There is no going back on freedom, democracy and the supremacy of the law,” he said.
New protests were expected today, the state-run Ahram Gate reported. The groups calling for the protest urged security forces not to block the demonstrations and demanded an end to Mubarak-era economic policies.
The worst violence this weekend was in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said, where seven people were killed Sunday, pushing the toll for two days of clashes to at least 44. The unrest was sparked on Saturday by a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city’s main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012, that left 74 dead.
Most of those sentenced to death were soccer fans from Port Said, deepening a sense of persecution that Port Said’s residents have felt since the stadium disaster, the worst soccer violence ever in Egypt.
At least another 11 died Friday elsewhere in the country during rallies marking the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Protesters used the occasion to renounce Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the country’s most dominant political force after Mubarak’s ouster.
The curfew and state of emergency, both in force for 30 days, affect the provinces of Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez. The curfew, which takes effect today, will be from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day.
“The violence we have witnessed against the public and private facilities, the terrorizing of people, blocking roads and use of arms, are actions strange to Egyptian society,” Morsi said. “These actions have nothing to do with the revolution” and are instead the “ugly face of a counter-revolution.”
Morsi, in office since June, also invited the nation’s political forces to a dialogue starting today to resolve the country’s latest crisis. A statement issued later by his office said that among those invited were Nobel peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist politician who finished third in last year’s presidential race.
The three are leaders of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella for the main opposition parties.
Khaled Dawoud, the National Salvation Front’s spokesman, said Morsi’s invitation is meaningless unless he clearly states what is on the agenda. That, he added, must include amending a disputed constitution hurriedly drafted by the president’s Islamist allies and rejected by the opposition.
He also faulted the president for not acknowledging his political responsibility for the latest bout of political violence.
“It is all too little too late,” he said.
Morsi has been criticized by secularists who contend he has reneged on campaign promises and focused instead on cementing the power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed him during the election.
A relative unknown until the Muslim Brotherhood nominated him to run for president last year, Morsi is widely criticized for having offered no vision for the country’s future after nearly 30 years of dictatorship under Mubarak and no coherent policy to tackle seemingly endless problems, from a free falling economy and deeply entrenched social injustices to surging crime and chaos on the streets.
An overhaul of the judiciary and the police, hated under the old regime for brutality, are also key demands of Morsi’s critics.
Morsi did not say what he plans to do to stem the violence in other parts of the country outside those three provinces, but he did say he had instructed the police to deal “firmly and forcefully” with individuals attacking state institutions, using firearms to “terrorize” citizens, or blocking roads and railway lines.
“We will face any threats against our people with the power of the law under the state of law,” he said, adding that while he is against taking exceptional measures, they are necessary and he would “not hesitate” to take further action if needed.
There were also clashes Sunday in Cairo and several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah.
Egypt’s current crisis is the second to hit the country since November, when Morsi issued decrees, since rescinded, that gave him nearly unlimited powers and placed him above any oversight, including by the judiciary.
Tareq el-Zomr, a one-time jihadist group, on Sunday blamed the secular opposition for the violence and threatened to set up vigilante militias to defend the government it supports.
His threat was accompanied by his charge that the opposition was responsible for the deadly violence of the past few days, setting the stage for possible bloody clashes between protesters and Islamist militiamen. The opposition denies the charge.
In Port Said on Sunday, tens of thousands of mourners poured into the streets for a mass funeral for most of the 37 people who died Saturday. They chanted slogans against Morsi.
“We are now dead against Morsi,” said Port Said activist Amira Alfy. “We will not rest now until he goes and we will not take part in the next parliamentary elections. Port Said has risen and will not allow even a semblance of normalcy to come back,” she said.
The violence flared only a month after a prolonged crisis - punctuated by deadly violence - over the new constitution. Ten died in that round of unrest, and hundreds were injured.
In Port Said, mourners chanted “There is no God but Allah,” and “Morsi is God’s enemy” as the funeral procession made its way through the city after prayers for the dead at the city’s Mariam Mosque. Women clad in black led the chants, which were quickly picked up by the rest of the mourners.
There were no police or army troops in sight. But the funeral procession briefly halted after gunfire rang out. Security officials said the gunfire came from several mourners who opened fire at the Police Club next to the cemetery. Activists, however, said the gunfire first came from inside the army club, which is also close to the cemetery. Some of the mourners returned fire, which drew more shots as well as tear gas, according to witnesses. They, together with the officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation in the city on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the Suez Canal.
A total of 630 people were injured, some of them by gunshot, said Abdel-Rahman Farag, director of the city’s hospitals.
Also Sunday, army troops backed by armored vehicles staked out positions at key government facilities to protect state interests and try to restore order.
There was also a funeral in Cairo for two policemen who were killed in the Port Said violence a day earlier. Several policemen grieving for their colleagues heckled Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the force, when he arrived for the funeral, according to witnesses.
The angry officers screamed at the minister that he was only at the funeral for the TV cameras - a highly unusual show of dissent in Egypt, where the police force maintains military like discipline.
Ibrahim left hurriedly, and the funeral proceeded without him.
In Cairo, clashes broke out for the fourth straight day Sunday, with protesters and police outside two landmark Nileside hotels near central Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising. Police fired tear gas while protesters pelted them with rocks.
Information for this article was contributed by Hamza Hendawi of The Associated Press; and by Tarek El-Tablawy, Salma El Wardany and Zaid Sabah Abd Alhamid of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/28/2013