CAIRO – Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace Thursday after fierce clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a contest over the country's future. Hundreds of President Mohamed Morsi supporters who had camped out near the palace overnight withdrew before a mid-afternoon deadline set by the Republican Guard, an elite unit whose duties include protecting the palace. Scores of opposition protesters remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks. The military played a big role in removing Hosni Mubarak during last year's popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis. Morsi's Islamist partisans fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during duelling demonstrations over the president's Nov. 22 decree to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution. Officials said seven people were killed and 350 wounded in the violence, for which each side blamed the other. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said. Prosecutors investigating the unrest said Brotherhood members had detained 49 wounded protesters and were refusing to release them to the authorities, the state news agency said. The commander of the Republican Guard said deployment of tanks and troop carriers around the presidential palace was intended to separate the adversaries, not to repress them. “The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators,” General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency. Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the opposition National Salvation Front, said more protests were planned, but not necessarily at the palace. “Our youth are leading us today and we decided to agree to whatever they want to do,” he said. Outside Cairo, supporters and opponents of Morsi clashed in his home town of Zagazig in the Nile Delta, state TV reported. Egypt plunged into renewed turmoil after Morsi issued his Nov. 22 decree and an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a new constitution to go to a referendum on Dec. 15. Since then six of the president's advisers have resigned. Essam Al-Amir, the director of state television quit Thursday, as did a Christian official working at the presidency. The Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, to which Morsi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians “only serve the nation's enemies”, Mohamed Badie said in a statement. UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay urged the Egyptian authorities to protect peaceful protesters and prosecute anyone inciting violence, including politicians. “The current government came to power on the back of similar protests and so should be particularly sensitive to the need to protect protesters' rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” Pillay said in Geneva. Morsi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow. Egypt's pound hit an eight-year low Thursday, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilise the economy. The stock market fell 4.6 percent. – Reuters
