Egypt draft constitution spurs mass protest

CAIRO -- Protesters filled Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday in the second giant rally this week, angrily vowing to bring down a draft constitution approved by allies of President Mohammed Morsi, as Egypt appeared headed toward a volatile confrontation.

The opposition announced plans for an intensified street campaign of protests and civil disobedience and even a possible march on Morsi's presidential palace to prevent him from calling a nationwide referendum on the draft. Top judges announced Friday that they may refuse to monitor any referendum, rendering it invalid.

Protests were first sparked when Morsi last week issued decrees granting himself sweeping powers to neutralize the judiciary.

If a referendum is called, "we will go to him at the palace and topple him," insisted one protester, Yasser Said, a businessman who said he voted for Morsi in last summer's presidential election.

Islamists are gearing up as well.

The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, drummed up supporters for its own mass rally Saturday. A number of Muslim clerics in Friday sermons in the southern city of Assiut called the president's opponents "enemies of God and Islam."

The draft has a distinctive Islamic bent -- enough to worry many that civil liberties could be restricted, though its provisions for enforcing Shariah, or Islamic law, are not as firm as ultraconservatives wished.

Anger at Morsi even spilled over into a mosque where the Islamist president joined weekly Friday prayers. In his sermon, the mosque's preacher compared Morsi to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, saying the prophet had enjoyed far-reaching powers as leader, giving a precedent for the same to happen now.

"No to tyranny!" congregants chanted. Morsi took to the podium and told the worshippers that he too objected to the language of the sheik and that one-man rule contradicts Islam.