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sweeping powers.
However, Mursi vowed yesterday to press forward after he assumed sweeping powers decried by the opposition as dictatorial.
The offices of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, were torched in the canal cities of Ismailiya and Port Said, the broadcaster said.
It earlier reported that the Suez office was also set ablaze, but it later withdrew the report.
A branch office of the Islamist party was set on fire in Alexandria and protesters were heading to the group’s main office in the Mediterranean city’s Sidi Gaber neighbourhood, security officials said.
“The situation in Alexandria is tense and security forces are eager to exercise self-restraint and maintain security and protect vital establishments,” General Abdelmawgud Lutfi, head of Alexandria security, said in a statement.
Earlier an FJP official told AFP the party’s office was stormed in Alexandria, where clashes broke out between rival demonstrators.
Hundreds also took to the streets of the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh against Mursi’s declaration, chanting: “No to merging the revolution with authoritarianism.”
Mursi told supporters on Thursday that Egypt was on the path to “freedom and democracy,” a day after he assumed sweeping powers that critics said made him a dictator.
“Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for,” he told an Islamist rally outside the presidential palace.
Secular opponents staged a rival rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to denounce Mursi’s power grab after he issued a decree on Thursday that gives his decisions immunity from judicial oversight.
“I have always been, and still am, and will always be, God willing, with the pulse of the people, what the people want, with clear legitimacy,” he said from a podium before thousands of supporters.
“No one can stop our march forward . . . I am performing my duty to please God and the nation and I take decisions after I consult with everyone,” the official MENA news agency quoted him as saying.
Mursi attacked his opponents in the judiciary who annulled the Islamist-dominated parliament before his election in June and were considering voiding an Islamist-dominated constituent assembly next month. His decree, granting himself unprecedented power, will expire when a new constitution is approved by the middle of February. But his opponents say he has become a dictator with even more power than president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in a popular mass uprising in early 2011.
Mursi’s supporters say the decree was necessary to bring an end to the turbulent transition period.
If the constitutional court annulled the constituent assembly, Morsi would have to pick a new one, prolonging its work and delaying parliamentary elections.
Liberals, Christian churches and representatives of journalists had already withdrawn from the constituent assembly, saying it was undemocratic and increasing the possibility of a court annulment.
Meanwhile, the European Union yesterday urged Mursi to respect the democratic process.
“It is of utmost importance that democratic process be completed in accordance with the commitments undertaken by the Egyptian leadership,” a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
Mursi must ensure the separation of powers, the independence of justice, the protection of fundamental freedoms and the holding of democratic parliamentary elections “as soon as possible”, said spokesman Michael Mann. — AFP.
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