CAIRO — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi faced the prospect of widening civil disobedience on Monday as the media and the tourism industry pondered measures to join a protest by judges against the Islamist leader.
The country’s judges already have gone on strike over Mr. Morsi’s Nov. 22 decrees placing him above judicial oversight.
Following those decrees, a panel dominated by the president’s Islamist supporters rushed through a new draft constitution without the participation of representatives of liberals, the Christian minority or women.
Mr. Morsi then called a national referendum on Dec. 15 to approve the new constitution.
The country’s highest judicial body, the Supreme Judiciary Council, agreed Monday to oversee the voting in a step legal experts described as “routine” and not obligatory.
The electoral commission, led by senior judges, was forced by law to hold a meeting Sunday to discuss preparations for the referendum.
An opposition coalition dominated by the liberal and leftist groups that led last year’s uprising already had called for a general strike on Tuesday and a large demonstration against the constitutional process and Mr. Morsi’s decree. Coalition participants plan to march on the presidential palace in the capital, Cairo.
Newspapers plan to suspend publication on Tuesday, while privately owned TV networks will go dark all day.
The full front pages of Egypt’s most prominent newspapers said Monday: “No to dictatorship” on a black background with a picture of a man wrapped in newspaper and with his feet cuffed.
Hotels and restaurants are considering switching off their lights for half an hour on Tuesday to protest against Mr. Morsi, according to the Supporting Tourism Coalition, an independent body representing tourism industry employees.
Mr. Morsi’s moves have plunged an already polarized Egypt into the worst political crisis since the uprising nearly two years ago that ousted authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak.
The crisis left the country divided between one camp containing Mr. Morsi, his Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, and another ultraconservative Islamist group, the Salafis, and another camp containing their opposition — youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public.
The opposition brought at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo’s Tahrir Square Nov. 27 and a comparable number Friday to demand that Mr. Morsi’s decrees be rescinded.
For 10 days, protesters have camped out in the square and planned for a massive rally at the presidential palace on Tuesday.
The Islamists responded Saturday with hundreds of thousands of protesters in Cairo’s twin city of Giza. Thousands took to the streets and imposed a siege on Egypt’s highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The court had been widely expected to hand down a ruling on Sunday that would declare the constitutional assembly that passed the draft charter illegitimate and disband parliament’s upper house, the Shura Council. Instead, the judges went on strike after they found their building under siege by protesters.
Three of Mr. Morsi’s aides also have resigned over his decree. Two members of the official National Council of Human Rights quit on Monday, describing the decrees as “disastrous.” They expressed “real fears” of Brotherhood hegemony in Egypt.
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