CAIRO: About 50,000 mainly Islamist protesters flocked to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to press Egypt's military rulers to transfer power to elected civilians after the cabinet launched a move to exempt the army from parliamentary oversight.
The protesters chanted Islamic songs before Friday prayers while others handed out flyers demanding the withdrawal of the constitutional proposal and that presidential elections be held no later than April 2012, instead of at year end or in 2013.
"Does the government want to humiliate the people? The people revolted against Mubarak and they will revolt against the constitution they want to impose on us!" a member of an orthodox Islamic Salafi group cried out over loudspeakers.
"Down to military rule" and "No to making the army a state above the state" were some of the chants echoing across Tahrir.
A military source said on Friday the army would hand power to a civilian government in 2012, without giving a exact date.
Indian-Military.org:army rule
|
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's elected government will complete its tenure as there is no threat to democracy and the army has no intention of coming to power, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said. "The army neither intends to come to power nor will it come to power. The judiciary is independent and pro-democratic," he told journalists at his official residence yesterday. There is no threat to democracy as the civilian government came to power after making numerous sacrifices and winning the 2008 election, he said. The army is part of the civilian government and is taking part in flood relief activities at the government's request, he added. "Despite this if some people are engaged in a debate (about a threat to the government and the army coming to power), they are wasting their time," Gilani said. He said those who consider the army and the civilian government as two separate entities are living in a "fool's paradise". |
|
|
