Muslim Brotherhood offices torched in Ismailia; rival protesters clash

(5 Dec 2012)
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Ismailia
1. Wide of fire engulfing offices of Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailia
2. Exterior of burning building
3. Wide of protesters smashing sign on Muslim Brotherhood building
4. Wide of burning building
5. Wide of small fire in building, flaming projectile hits scaffold
6. Protesters marching and chanting slogans against President Mohammed Morsi
Cairo
7. Wide of Islamist protesters throwing stones and running towards anti-Morsi protesters
8. Mid of both camps throwing stones at each other
9. Zoom out of protester throwing Molotov firebomb at other protesters
10. Injured person being carried into ambulance, man lifts bloody hands
11. Injured person in ambulance
12. Ambulance leaving
13. Low angle of stones on road

STORYLINE:
Supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi clashed on Friday in the worst violence since he took office, while he defended a decision to give himself near-absolute power.
The edicts by Morsi, which were issued on Thursday, have turned months of growing polarisation into an open battle between his Muslim Brotherhood and liberals who fear a new dictatorship.
State TV reported that offices of the Brotherhood's political arm were burned in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, east of Cairo.
Thousands from each camp demonstrated in major cities, and violence broke out in several places.
Egypt's Health Ministry said 126 people were wounded in the clashes that were still raging hours after nightfall.
Clashes occurred near the presidential palace in Cairo as rival demonstrators battled each other with rocks, firebombs and sticks.
Thousands of Islamist supporters of Morsi descended on the area around the palace where some 300 of his opponents were staging a sit-in.
The Islamists chased the protesters away from their base outside the palace's main gate and tore down their tents.
The protesters scattered in side streets where they chanted anti-Morsi slogans.
After a lull in fighting, hundreds of young Morsi opponents arrived at the scene and immediately began throwing firebombs at the president's backers, who responded with rocks.
Some in the opposition, which has been divided and weakened, were now speaking of a sustained street campaign against the man who nearly five months ago became Egypt's first freely elected president.
The unrest also underscored the struggle over the direction of Egypt's turbulent passage nearly two years after a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime.
Liberals and secular Egyptians accuse the Brotherhood of monopolising power, dominating the writing of a new constitution and failing to tackle the country's chronic economic and security problems.
Morsi and the Brotherhood contend that supporters of the old regime are holding up progress toward democracy.
They have focused on the judiciary, which many Egyptians see as too much under the sway of Mubarak-era judges and prosecutors and which has shaken up the political process several times with its rulings, including by dissolving the lower house of parliament, which the Brotherhood led.

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