CAIRO — Several thousand Egyptians rallied Friday in the first significant protests against President Mohammed Morsi, accusing him and his Muslim Brotherhood group of trying to monopolize power.
The central protest in Cairo, which totaled about 3,000 people and converged on the presidential palace, drew a smaller turnout than mass demonstrations that helped topple Morsi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, or later rallies against the council of generals that took power after Mubarak’s fall.
While the turnout was low for the rally in Cairo on Friday, as well as for similar ones in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and elsewhere, the protests point to fears many Egyptians feel with the Islamist president and his policies, and reflect a deep divide in Egypt over the nation’s direction under Morsi and the Brotherhood.
Other than minor scuffles, the demonstrations in Cairo were peaceful. However, a mob wielding knives and sticks attacked about 1,000 anti-Brotherhood protesters in Alexandria. Several people were wounded and someone in the crowd lit a flare that sent clouds of smoke into the air.
Protesters accuse Morsi of monopolizing power and say he exceeded his authority when he assumed legislative powers after forcing senior generals into retirement following a deadly attack this month by militants that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.
The rally in Cairo appeared to be largely made up of supporters of the former regime and those calling for Egypt to remain a secular state. Notably absent were Egypt’s liberal and secular parties as well as the youth activists who helped engineer last year’s uprising.