CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's opposition accused President Mohamed Mursi's
Islamist allies of trying to muzzle dissent on Friday after prosecutors
decided to investigate whether prominent government critics were guilty
of sedition.
The probe, which comes a month after Mursi replaced the
chief prosecutor, further sours the political climate as the leader and
his opponents face off over a new constitution that became law on
Wednesday.
Critics of the new
charter say it uses vague language, fails to enshrine the rights of
women and minorities and does little to champion the rights of Egyptians
who rose up last year to overthrow army-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Supporters say it protects personal rights that were
often trampled upon during the Mubarak era and a subsequent spell of
army rule.
The constitution text won about 64 percent approval in a
two-stage referendum but Mursi's opponents vowed to continue protests
and rejected his calls for a national dialogue.
Prosecutors ordered the inquiry into three of the president's most prominent opponents on Thursday - former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and leftist Hamdeen Sabahy.
Moussa and Sabahy both challenged Mursi for the presidency in a June election which followed the 2011 uprising.
The prosecutor's office said the three had been accused
of inciting supporters to rise up and overthrow Mursi, the country's
first fairly elected leader.
Mursi's critics saw an attempt to intimidate them into silence and vowed to continue challenging his rule.
"I believe this is orchestrated by the Brotherhood leadership," Hussein Abdel Ghani,
a spokesman for the country's main opposition umbrella group, told
Reuters. "The Mubarak regime used to order the same tactics."
"But we are going to use our full rights, our civil
tactics, to demonstrate our opposition to this regime," he said.
The charged atmosphere makes it harder for Mursi to
bolster his authority and muster a consensus for unpopular austerity
measures vital to preventing a weak economy from collapsing.
AN END TO TURMOIL
Mursi is hoping that the quick adoption of the
constitution and holding elections to a permanent new parliament soon
will help end the long period of turmoil since Mubarak's overthrow in
February 2011 that has wrecked the economy.
But the Egyptian pound tumbled to its weakest in almost
eight years this week after the constitution was approved. People
unnerved by the continued political tension rushed to hoard dollars and
gold.
The government ordered new restrictions on foreign
currency apparently designed to prevent capital flight. Leaving or
entering with more than $10,000 cash is now banned.
Mursi was propelled
into office thanks to the rallying power of his Muslim Brotherhood, the
country's main opposition group under Mubarak that was banned from
formal politics for decades.
Ahmed Sobeih, a
spokesman for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, dismissed
Abdel Ghani's accusation of an organised legal campaign against Mursi's
opponents.
"We must get away
from the language of mutual accusations," he said, adding that "dozens"
of similar complaints had been filed against Brotherhood leaders.
Mursi appointed Chief Public Prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim when he assumed sweeping new powers on November 22. Ibrahim's predecessor, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, had served for many years under Mubarak.
Judicial sources
said the inquiry against Moussa, ElBaradei and Sabahy followed a
complaint from lawyers sympathetic to Mursi.
The trio are part
of the National Salvation Front, an alliance of political groups that
has spearheaded street protests against the government.
"The mere referral
of these complaints to an investigative judge and the accompanying
public announcement is already cause enough for serious concern," said
Heba Morayef, Egypt director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
A spokesman for Moussa said the accusations against him were groundless.
"What we read in
the papers are several allegations that we have denied over and over in
the past few months," said Ahmed Kamel, a spokesman for Moussa's
Congress Party. "They are completely unfounded and have no relation to
reality."
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