CAIRO/LONDON/TUNIS – Egyptians threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at the main presidential palace in Cairo on Friday as thousands rallied against President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood in protests that ignited clashes across the country.
The army put up barbed wire, and the Republican Guard fanned out around the palace. Police used tear gas to disperse protesters armed with Molotov cocktails that set parts of the palace on fire, state media reported. Security forces also clashed with protesters around Morsi’s house and Freedom and Justice Party headquarters in al-Sharqiya.
Thousands of protesters clashed with police in several provinces in rallies calling on Morsi to fulfil the goals of the revolution that brought him to power. More than 120 people were injured, the Health Ministry said.
Egypt’s opposition had called Thursday for calm in anticipation of the protests, expressing concern that the murder Wednesday of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid in Tunis could trigger further unrest in the region and lead to copycat killings of opposition leaders in Egypt.
Egyptian opposition leader and former presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi wrote on his party’s Facebook page that Belaid’s death “is a very serious warning.”
“It could mean the Arab Spring countries might go through a series of assassinations of the opposition,” Sabahi wrote.
In Tunis, the funeral of Belaid, a leftist politician, drew hundreds of thousands of mourners chanting antigovernment slogans Friday — as well as gangs of armed youths who smashed cars and clashed with police just outside the cemetery.
Hours later, the prime minister insisted he would try to form a new government despite his own party’s opposition, threatening to resign if his proposal wasn’t accepted.
The events added to the turmoil in Tunisia, where the transition from dictatorship to democracy has been shaken by religious divides, political wrangling and economic struggles. It has been a perilous stretch for a country many hoped would be a model for other postrevolutionary Arab states.
People from across the nation flowed into Tunisia’s capital to lay to rest 48-year-old Belaid, a lawyer and top figure in the Popular Front alliance who was shot dead Wednesday.
The funeral “was one of the most impressive in the history of Tunisia,” historian Slahhedine Jourchi said as demonstrators marched against the ruling Islamists. The turnout was boosted due to a general strike called by Tunisia’s most powerful labor union in honor of Belaid.
Tunisians overthrew long-ruling dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, kicking off the Arab Spring revolutions. In the two years since, a moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, won elections and has governed in a coalition with two secular parties.
But the ruling coalition’s failure to stem the country’s economic crisis and stop the often-violent rise of hardline Salafi Muslims has drawn fierce criticism, especially from staunch secularists such as Belaid. He had also accused Ennahda of backing some of the political violence through its own goon squads.
Belaid was shot dead while in his car outside his home by an unknown assailant. Hours after his killing Wednesday, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said he would form a new, technocratic government to guide the country to elections — but Ennahda rejected that idea soon afterward.
Late Friday, Jebali renewed his proposal for a new government, which would be a key concession to the country’s opposition. “I am convinced this is the best solution for the current situation in Tunisia,” Jebali said, offering to resign if the elected assembly did not accept his new proposed Cabinet.
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