Judges cry foul

Judiciary on strike to reject Morsi’s sweeping powers decree

Egypt’s judiciary slams Morsi’s ‘attack’

CAIRO: Judges in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria announced a strike to reject a decree by President Mohamed Morsi which grants him sweeping powers immune from judicial oversight.

The Judges Club of Alexandria announced “the suspension of work in all courts and prosecution administrations in the provinces of Alexandria and Beheira... until the end of the crisis caused by this declaration”, Club chief Mohammed Ezzat al-Agwa said in a statement.

Meanwhile, anti-riot police fired tear gas to disperse protesters camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as Western governments voiced growing concern over Islamist President Mohamed Morsi’s assumption of sweeping powers.

A hard core of opposition activists had spent the night in the iconic protest hub – epicentre of the popular uprising that toppled veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak last year – erecting some 30 tents, a correspondent reported.

But when more demonstrators attempted to join them in the morning, police responded with volleys of tear gas forcing them to retreat into surrounding streets.

By midday, small groups of protesters continued to occupy the square, where traffic in the normally busy thoroughfare was almost brought to a halt.

Opposition-led protests were held in most of Egypt’s major cities on Friday sparking violent clashes in the canal city of Suez and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, where offices of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, which backed Morsi for the presidency, were torched.

The mainly secular liberal activists voiced determination to keep up the momentum of their protests against Morsi’s decree on Thursday which placed his decisions beyond judicial scrutiny, vastly adding to his power.

They called a new mass protest in Tahrir for Tuesday.