CAIRO: Egypt's ministry of interior reported on Tuesday that they had arrested 348 “troublemakers” in street battles between police and protesters. According to Cairo Security Chief Osama al-Sagheer, who spoke with Aswat Masriya, among those arrested were reportedly convicts and ex-convicts. Sagheer said that 216 policemen have been injured in the ongoing clashes, some of them by birdshots, although it is unclear exactly how police were injured by birdshot. Bikyamasr.com's reporters and sources in and around downtown Cairo have not reported a single weapon able to fire birdshot at protesters. It comes a day after the ministry claimed protesters shot themselves and that the police were only using tear gas in an effort to disperse protesters. By late afternoon Tuesday, numbers in central Cairo's Tahrir Square are growing at a faster pace than earlier in the day, with anti-President Mohamed Morsi demonstrators hoping that a show of strength will help push the president to withdraw his presidential decree issued last week. That decree has become the focal point of protests against the president, who most in Tahrir over the past five days have told Bikyamasr.com is a sign “Morsi wants to be dictator over Egypt." At the same time, on Tuesday, as thousands are expected to pack the main square, protesters believe they have the moral high ground based on their role in the January 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. “We were here and risked out lives in the [January] uprising against Mubarak, not the Brotherhood, so this is our revolution and we will make sure it continues," said Hossam el-Arabi, a 39-year-old carpenter from 6th of October. Tuesday is supposed to be the largest protests against Morsi since last Friday, when tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets. But already, tear gas and police violence has occurred, with a number small skirmishes occurring around noon. “They can't scare us away and we will fight if we have to," added el-Arabi. Liberal and secular groups called for the “million person march" on Tuesday to continue their protests against President Mohamed Morsi and a presidential decree that gives him near absolute power above the rule of law. An Egyptian court will hear a case against the decree on December 4, but activists and citizens are fearful that the move could bring forth a new dictator to the country and have been in protest mode for the past week. Morsi issued the decree last Thursday and granted himself new powers and fortified his decisions from being challenged in courts. In the statement from the president's office, it reiterated that it was committed to working with “all political forces" in an effort to come to a compromise and reach common ground on the constitution. It stressed the “temporary nature" of the presidential decree issued on Thursday that has enraged most political forces in the country against the president. “This declaration is deemed necessary in order to hold accountable those responsible for the corruption as well as other crimes during the previous regime and the transitional period," the presidency said in a statement. In light of the calls by the protesters that Morsi was taking absolute power over the country, the statement said the decree was “not meant to concentrate powers," but to devolve them. However, activists in Tahrir told Bikyamasr.com that this was “another attempt by the government to maintain its power as the people know better than to listen to these lies." Tents were erected by liberal groups and movements in Tahrir Square on Friday and Saturday, within view of the violence, which moved from Qasr el-Aini street on Saturday evening to near the Omar Makram mosque on the edges of the iconic square. On Sunday afternoon they lashed out at the president, saying he would be held responsible for “crimes of murder, torture and arrests carried out by the interior ministry against protesters."
