Riot police fired brief rounds of tear gas last night at tens of thousands of demonstrators outside the Egyptian presidential palace to protest an Islamist-backed draft constitution.
It was the clearest evidence yet that the new charter has only widened the divisions that have plagued Egypt since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago.
In solidarity with the demonstrations, 11 newspapers stopped publication for the day yesterday to protest limits on the new constitution's protections for freedom of expression. At least three private television networks said they would halt broadcasts today. By last night, demonstrators had filled Tahrir Square and taken to the streets in Alexandria, Suez and several other cities.
President Mohammed Morsi's supporters say the constitution establishes a new democracy, not a theocracy. But while it does not impose religious rule, his opponents say, it does not preclude it either. They say it contains major loopholes in individual liberties, could enable Muslim religious authorities to wield new influence, and still leaves too much power in the hands of the president.
"It seeks to impose a one-sided religious extremist national identity, contrary to Egypt's moderate character and openness to the world," a coalition of secular opposition groups declared yesterday in a 32-point analysis of the constitution's 200-plus articles.
Still, the document promises an end to nearly two years of tumultuous transition, and the odds are against blocking its ratification when it comes up for an up-or-down vote on December 15th, many in the opposition acknowledge.
But Mr Morsi's opponents hope their campaign to defeat the draft might at least narrow its margin of approval.
They hope to carry that momentum into parliamentary elections in two months and hurt the Islamists' chances at the polls. Last year, Islamists won about three-quarters of the seats in the parliamentary elections, before a court dissolved the chamber.
Protesters turned out yesterday for the third day in the past two weeks to protest against Mr Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president and a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Marchers recycled slogans from the revolt against Mubarak but turned them against Morsi and the Islamists.
"Bread, freedom and bring down the Brotherhood!" some chanted. "Shave your beard, show your disgrace, you will find that you have Mubarak's face!"
When the crowds reached the palace at about 6pm, they pushed briefly against police barricades set up in the surrounding streets, and the officers responded with short volleys of tear gas. But the riot police then retreated behind the palace walls, apparently to avoid further clashes.
Around the same time two rows of riot police officers stood guard so Mr Morsi's motorcade could make its exit to his suburban home. "Coward!" they chanted. "Leave!"
The crowd looted a guard house and covered the palace walls with graffiti mocking Mr Morsi, the brotherhood and other Islamists.
But if the protests showcased the outrage of Mr Morsi's opponents, they did not suggest widespread defections from among his core supporters. The crowd appeared relatively affluent compared to those at the usual Tahrir Square protests here, to say nothing of the Islamist rallies. There was a high concentration of women, especially for an event after dark, and very few traditional Islamic headscarves. Interviews suggested a heavy representation from Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, who fear marginalisation under the Muslim Brotherhood.
The relative affluence of the crowd "is a good thing", said Farid Beshay, a 29-year-old Christian. "This is not a revolt of the poor. This is people coming to demand their rights."
The newspapers that shut down for the day said their action was aimed specifically at the draft constitution's failure to protect free expression.
"You are reading this message because Egypt Independent objects to continued restrictions on media liberties, especially after hundreds of Egyptians gave their lives for freedom and dignity," a short statement set against a black background declared yesterday on the website of Egypt Independent, the English-language sister publication of the country's largest independent daily, Al Masry Al Youm. That paper and 10 others did not publish.
Among other criticisms, analysts and human rights groups say the draft constitution all but eviscerates its provisions for freedom of expression, in part by also expressly prohibiting "insults" to any living individual or to religious "prophets".
The draft charter also stipulates that a purpose of the news media is to uphold public morality and the "true nature of the Egyptian family," and specifies that government authorisation may be required to operate a television station or a website.
"The protection of freedom of expression is fatally undermined by all the provisions that limit it," said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has studied the text. "On paper, they have not protected freedom of expression.
It is designed to let the government limit those rights on the basis of 'morality' or the vague concept of 'insult."'
Critics say the push to ratify the draft coincides with a cascade of accusations from Egypt's new Islamist leaders that elements of the media are biased against them, and even that they are part of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to thwart the transition to democracy rather than let Islamists win.
As part of a decree expanding his own powers until the passage of the constitution, Mr Morsi recently passed a law for "protection of the revolution" that covered crimes including insults to the president, the Parliament or the courts. And he created a specially designated circuit within the court system to try those suspected of violating the law, along with those accused of abuses against civilians under the Mubarak government.
Mr Morsi's justice minister has already initiated investigations against at least three journalists for insulting the judiciary - the branch of government with the most crucial role in protecting the free press, said Morayef of Human Rights Watch.
"You are calling insulting the authorities a crime against the revolution?" she said. "That is authoritarianism. That is a lack of understanding of what 'free expression' means."
Advisers to Mr Morsi counter that the draft constitution expands on the negligible protections of free expression that prevailed under Mubarak.
They noted that in one of his few previous presidential decrees, Mr Morsi acted to support media freedom. In the Mubarak era, insulting the president was a crime punishable by imprisonment. But after a newspaper editor was jailed for that offence in late August, Mr Morsi changed the law to forbid incarceration until a court verdict, allowing the imprisoned journalist, Islam Afifi of Al Dustour, to go free without spending even a night behind bars.
The website of the state newspaper Al Ahram yesterday reported that at least 60 of its own journalists had joined the protest marches - a sign that could be taken as a notable endorsement of the cause, or a measure of how much has already changed since Mubarak's exit.
New York Times service