Demonstrations Egypt

Mohammed Abdelaziz, head of the Cairo Lawyers Syndicate, has been hospitalized on a weeklong hunger strike, the latest development in a looming showdown between the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood. Protesting the detention without charges of 59 lawyers, most of them Islamic fundamentalists, Abdelaziz, 60, was admitted for observation in a weak condition while Sayed Khalef, 53, secretary general of the lawyers' syndicate, entered the fifth day of his own hunger strike.

CAIRO - Demonstrators clashed in Alexandria on Friday as Egyptians gathered across the nation in rival rallies on the eve of a referendum on a divisive draft constitution backed by Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. Thousands of Islamists waved banners and flags in Cairo and other cities to support the proposed charter that has been criticized by secularists and civil rights groups for limiting personal freedoms and emphasizing Sharia law by allowing clerics to be consulted on legislation.

At least eight lawyers were arrested Wednesday and accused of instigating a clash with police over the death of a colleague in police custody, the Interior Ministry said. Six of the arrested attorneys were among Egypt's leading defenders of suspected Islamic extremists. Four have represented Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States on federal charges involving a plot to bomb the World Trade Center in New York.

The White House on Monday called for negotiations among a broad cross-section of the Egyptian people, including opposition groups, to help resolve the current political crisis. As anti-government demonstrations in Egypt prepared to enter their second week, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that the Obama administration continued to support the human rights demands by Egyptian protesters including freedom of association, assembly and speech. “Those must be addressed in a substantive way by the Egyptian government,” Gibbs said.

Egyptian police opened fire to disperse Muslim fundamentalist demonstrators, killing one person and arresting 12, security sources said. According to the sources, police used firearms after militants ignored orders to end the protest in the town of Asyut in Upper Egypt.

IRANIAN Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati said a delegation from nonaligned countries will travel to Iraq as soon as possible to try to end the Gulf War, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported. A delegation from Iran, Cuba, Yugoslavia and India had planned to leave for Baghdad on Sunday, but it was advised by Iraq to postpone the visit in light of the allied ground assault. EGYPTIAN police used clubs and tear gas to disperse stone-throwing university students who protested the war.

Surging out of Cairo's main mosque, several hundred chanting protesters tried to demonstrate Friday against Israeli policies in the occupied territories but were quickly set upon by baton-wielding police. Officials said three policemen were injured and 22 people arrested in the ensuing scuffles.

A band of Muslim fundamentalists rampaged through the central Egyptian city of Minya on Thursday, attacking a beer truck and a video shop they suspected of dealing in pornographic films, authorities said. Authorities said 22 fundamentalists were arrested in Minya, about 125 miles south of Cairo.

Egyptian police arrested 58 Muslim fundamentalists for setting fire to a Coptic Christian church and attacking university students in separate incidents in southern Egypt. A police spokesman said seven teen-agers were arrested in the burning of Virgin Mary Church in Sohag, 250 miles south of Cairo. The church was set ablaze after rumors circulated that a fire at a nearby mosque had been ignited by Coptic Christians.

The uprising by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip may not, as yet, be like the proverbial "shot heard round the world." But certainly the bullets fired by Israeli troops to quell the disturbances have echoed loudly here in Egypt, Israel's largest neighbor and peace treaty partner. Indeed, the unrest in Gaza, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank, has strained relations between the two Camp David signatories more than any other event since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Anti-Israel protests escalated Monday, with demonstrators clashing with police in the Egyptian capital, as Arab leaders searched for ways to defuse the crisis. Protesters also took to the streets in Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Yemen. The demonstration in Egypt was the most violent here since Israel seized control of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's compound Friday.

Three days after a controversial novel ignited a violent student protest, the conflict continued to roil Egypt on Thursday as various officials defended or condemned the 1983 work that some claim defames Islam. Egypt's own mini-Salman Rushdie affair centers on "A Banquet for Seaweed" by Syrian author Haider Haider. The title refers to a despairing religious skeptic who commits suicide by drowning himself in the sea.

Mohammed Abdelaziz, head of the Cairo Lawyers Syndicate, has been hospitalized on a weeklong hunger strike, the latest development in a looming showdown between the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood. Protesting the detention without charges of 59 lawyers, most of them Islamic fundamentalists, Abdelaziz, 60, was admitted for observation in a weak condition while Sayed Khalef, 53, secretary general of the lawyers' syndicate, entered the fifth day of his own hunger strike.

At least eight lawyers were arrested Wednesday and accused of instigating a clash with police over the death of a colleague in police custody, the Interior Ministry said. Six of the arrested attorneys were among Egypt's leading defenders of suspected Islamic extremists. Four have represented Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States on federal charges involving a plot to bomb the World Trade Center in New York.

In one of the strongest public confrontations so far against the Egyptian regime, thousands of lawyers seeking to launch a peaceful march to the presidential palace were halted Tuesday with tear gas and rubber bullets, touching off a melee in which hundreds of citizens clashed with police as they stampeded through the downtown here.

"Our joy is overflowing. Thanks be to God. The enemy is turning tail," declared a broadcast by the radio of the exiled KUWAITI government. SYRIA blamed Iraq for the ill-fated outcome of its Kuwait invasion. "The rulers of Baghdad cannot deny their responsibility for . . . the catastrophe," the government-run Damascus Radio said. EGYPT was skeptical. Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid said the war will not end until Iraq accepts all 12 U.N. edicts.

Rioters enraged over a police attack on a Cairo mosque battled Egyptian security forces who fired weapons and tear gas, leaving one man dead and 22 people wounded, authorities and witnesses said. The Interior Ministry said Muslim extremists of the Jihad (Holy War) organization led demonstrators protesting the attack by security forces Friday night on a mosque in a Cairo suburb after getting reports that militants were meeting there to "plot acts of incitement and violence."

The Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan, hotbeds of support for Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, broke with the majority of Arab nations Sunday to sharply condemn the U.S.-led ground offensive in Kuwait. The allied effort, however, won restrained praise in Israel. A Jordanian spokesman said the Amman government "denounces this aggression and expresses the anger and pain of its people and calls upon the international community to . . . put an end to this fighting."