EGYPT: Egyptian protesters break through barbed wire barriers to reach main gate of presidential palace in Cairo
Record ID:
863971
EGYPT: Egyptian protesters break through barbed wire barriers to reach main gate of presidential palace in Cairo
- Title: EGYPT: Egyptian protesters break through barbed wire barriers to reach main gate of presidential palace in Cairo
- Date: 7th December 2012
- Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (DECEMBER 7, 2012) (REUTERS) WIDE OF MAIN STREET LEADING TO PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN 'MISR ALGADEDA' DISTRICT TANK PARKS BEHIND BARBED WIRE FENCE/DEMONSTRATORS TRYING TO BREAK INTO TANKS AND MILITARY VEHICLES DEPLOYED ACROSS STREET VARIOUS OF CROWDS OF ANTI-MURSI DEMONSTRATORS DEMONSTRATORS BREAKING THROUGH FENCE DEMONSTRATORS LIGHTING UP FIREWORKS VARIOUS OF DEMONSTRATORS BREAKING THROUGH FENCE AND FIREWORKS WIDE OF MAIN STREET LEADS TO THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN 'MISR ALGADEDA' DISTRICT VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING, WAVING FLAGS
- Embargoed: 22nd December 2012 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- City:
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAEFG2Z9LVZ29RUTPS4ZC9VAVSY
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Friday (December 7) after breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbing onto army tanks guarding the premises.
Opposition leaders earlier rejected a national dialogue proposed by the Islamist president as a way out of a crisis that has polarised the nation and provoked deadly street clashes.
Elite Republican Guard units had ringed the palace with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday (December 6) after a night of violence between Islamist supporters of Mursi and their opponents, in which seven people were killed and 350 wounded.
Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead.
Mursi had offered few concessions in a speech late on Thursday, refusing to retract a Nov. 22 decree in which he assumed sweeping powers or cancel a referendum next week on a constitution newly drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.
Instead, he called for a dialogue at his office on Saturday to chart a way forward for Egypt after the referendum, an idea that liberal, leftist and other opposition leaders rebuffed.
They have demanded that Mursi rescind the decree in which he temporarily shielded his decisions from judicial review and that he postpone the Dec. 15 referendum before any talks begin.
ENDS - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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