CAIRO - Egypt's Islamists have threatened to stage protests if the government went ahead with a plans to set supra-constitutional rules that they argue would violate the aims of the March revolution. 'We will protest en masse in Tahrir Square (in Cairo) and all other Egyptian squares if these principles are approved,' said Saad al-Katatni, a senior official in the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the influential Muslim Brotherhood. Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Selmi said Thursday that the government would issue a 'constitutional declaration' after discussing it with the nation's political powers. Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, see this as violating a March referendum, approved by more than 70 per cent of voters, that featured amendments to the Egyptian constitution. Islamists are worried that the supra-constitutional principles will water down the Islamic identity of the country. 'The will of the Egyptian people should be respected. The people will not accept this under any guise,' said al-Katatani in a statement carried by local newspapers Friday. Since former Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak was deposed in a popular revolt in February, long-suppressed Islamists have been keeping a high profile, raising fears among the country's liberals and the Christian minority. On July 29, they held a massive demonstration in central Cairo calling for establishing an Islamic state in Egypt. 'The talk about a new constitutional declaration means a relapse to fraud,' Assem Abdul Maged, a leader in the Islamic Group, said. 'The principles to be included in this declaration will provide the chance for violating the popular will,' Maged told the independent newspaper Al Masri Al Youm in remarks published Friday. 'Applying them means that Mubarak and his regime are still in power,' he added.
