1000s surround presidential palace in Egypt

Tens of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters have encircled the presidential palace in Cairo after Egyptian riot policedid not stop them.

The protesters, who banged on lampposts and chanted “Leave,” gathered outside the al-Ittihadiya Palace in the Egyptian capital on Tuesday.

The Egyptian demonstrators also managed to cut through barbed wire, laid out a few hundred meters from the palace, but they retreated after the police forces fired tear gas.

Following the clashes between protesters and the security forces, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi left the palace. A security official said that he “left the Ittihadiya palace on schedule after official meetings.”

On November 22, Morsi issued a decree declaring that no judicial body can dissolve the Constituent Assembly, which was writing the draft of the constitution.

The decree allows the president to take “any decision or measure to protect the revolution.” It also makes decisions and laws issued by the president “final and not subject to appeal.”

There were also clashes between police and protesters in the central province of Minya, and Alexanderia, the Mediterranean port city on Egypt’s north coast.

Egypt’s independent and opposition newspapers did not publish editions on Tuesday to express their outrage at what they called the lack of press freedom in the new constitution.

On November 30, the Constituent Assembly approved the final draft of the new constitution.

The Egyptians launched a revolution against the pro-Israeli regime in January 2011, which eventually brought an end to the 30-year dictatorship of former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.