Egypt Islamist President declares state of emergency,
warning he is ready to take further steps to confront threats to Egypt's
security.
President Mohamed Morsi declared a
state of emergency in three provinces hit by rioting which has left
dozens dead, warning he was ready to take further steps to confront
threats to Egypt's security.
In an address on state
television Sunday evening, Morsi said the emergency measures would come
into effect in the provinces of Port Said, Suez and Ismailiya "for 30
days starting at midnight (2200 GMT Sunday)".
Curfews
would be imposed on the same three provinces from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am,
he added -- and he warned he would take further steps to confront
threats to Egypt's security if need be.
But Morsi also invited opposition politicians for talks Monday in a bid to bridge the growing political gulf in the country.
Morsi
acted after a second day of rioting rocked Port Said Sunday, sparked by
death sentences handed down by a court on Saturday against some of
those convicted over deadly football riots last year.
Sunday's violence left another six people dead and more than 460 injured, according to medics.
Crowds
attempted to storm three police stations in the Suez Canal city, while
others looted and torched an army social club, security officials said.
The
latest casualties, among them a teenager shot in the chest, added to
the toll of 31 people including two anti-riot police killed in the city
on Saturday.
Unrest also erupted on Sunday in Suez,
another canal city, where protesters surrounded a police station, lobbed
Molotov cocktails at security forces and blocked the road leading to
the capital, security officials said.
In Cairo, police
clashed with protesters who accuse Morsi of betraying the goals of the
revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak two years ago, highlighting deep
political divisions in the country now ruled by Islamists.
Clashes
near Tahrir Square -- symbolic heart of the 2011 uprising that toppled
Mubarak -- continued sporadically during the day and into Sunday
evening, witnesses said.
The US and British embassies, located just minutes from Tahrir Square, closed their services to the public for the day.
Morsi
warned that he was ready to take further measures unless there was an
end to the deadly unrest that has swept Egypt since Friday, when
protests to mark the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak revolt
turned violent.
"If I must I will do much more for the sake of Egypt. This is my duty and I will not hesitate," the president said.
A
few hundred people took to the streets of Ismailiya just after Morsi's
announcement and clashed with police, a correspondent said. A medical
source said six people had been injured.
Morsi in his
address also held out an olive branch to the opposition and political
leaders across Egypt, inviting them for talks on Monday.
"There is no alternative to dialogue," he said.
A
statement by his office said the leaders of the National Salvation
Front, the main coalition of parties and movements opposing the ruling
Islamists, were among those invited to the talks at 1600 GMT Monday at
the presidential palace.
The National Salvation Front,
led by Nobel peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League boss
Amr Mussa and leftist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi, has warned it will
"not participate" in upcoming parliamentary polls unless the causes of
the violence are addressed.
The rioting in Port Said
began on Saturday after a Cairo court handed down death sentences on 21
supporters of the local football club, Al-Masry, in the wake of football
violence last February that left 74 people dead.
Everyone
had to respect the verdicts, Morsi insisted, condemning the violence as
"a violation of the law and a violation of the revolution".
Earlier
Sunday, residents of Port Said buried those killed the previous day.
Their bodies, wrapped in white shrouds, were carried in open coffins by a
sea of mourners along the city's main avenue.
"Our
city is being hit by the interior ministry!" and "Down with Brotherhood
rule!" chanted the crowd, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood from which
Morsi draws his main support.
A brief burst of gunfire sent mourners scattering amid chaotic scenes, which later degenerated into fresh rioting.
Egypt
was under a state of emergency for more than three decades in the wake
of the assassination of president Anwar Sadat in 1981 and until May last
year, a month before Morsi was elected.
Ending the
state of emergency -- which allowed authorities to detain people without
charge and try them in emergency security courts -- was a key demand of
protesters who toppled Mubarak in 2011.
middle-east-online
