CAIRO — Egypt's vice president met a broad representation of major opposition groups for the first time Sunday and offered new concessions including freedom of the press, release of those detained since anti-government protests began nearly two weeks ago and the eventual lifting of the country's hated emergency laws.
The Muslim Brotherhood, however, rejected the reform measures proposed by Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman as "insufficient," AFP reported.
Although the Brotherhood's presence in a meeting with top Egyptian government officials was in itself a significant sign of change, Essam al-Erian said "They didn't respond to most of our demands." The Muslim Brotherhood figure added, "They only responded to some of our demands, but in a superficial way."
Two of the groups that attended the meeting said this was only a first step in a dialogue which has yet to meet their central demand — the immediate ouster of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
RELATED:
Analysis: Dangerously underestimating the Muslim
Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood: ‘We are against
Zionism’
Banks across Egypt open for first time since unrest"People still want the president to step down," said Mostafa al-Naggar, a protest organizer and supporter of Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate and one of the country's leading democracy advocates.
"The protest continues because there are no guarantees and not all demands have been met," he added. "We did not sign on to the statement. This is a beginning of a dialogue. We approve the positive things in the statement but ... we are still demanding that the president step down."
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, made a similar statement after its representatives attended the meeting.
Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman offered to set up a committee of
judiciary and political figures to study proposed constitutional reforms
that would allow more candidates to run for president and impose term
limits on the presidency, the state news agency reported. The committee
was given until the first week of March to finish the tasks.
The
offer also included a pledge not to harass those participating in
anti-government protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands at the
biggest rallies. The government agreed not to hamper freedom of press
and not to interfere with text messaging and Internet.
The
meeting drew the broadest representation of Egypt's fragmented
opposition to sit with the new vice president since the protests began
on Jan. 25.
The new offer of concessions followed a series of
others that would have been unimaginable just a month ago in this
tightly controlled country. All appear geared to placate the protesters
and relieve international pressure without giving in to the one demand
that unites all the opposition — Mubarak's immediate departure. The
latest agreement makes no mention of any plan for Mubarak to step down
before a new election is held later this year.
Since protests
began, Mubarak has pledged publicly for the first time that he will not
seek re-election. The government promised his son Gamal, who had widely
been expected to succeed him, would also not stand. Mubarak appointed a
vice president for the first time since he took office three decades
ago, widely considered his designated successor. He sacked his cabinet,
named a new one and promised reforms. And on Saturday, the top leaders
of the ruling party, including Gamal Mubarak, were purged.
There
were signs that the paralysis that has gripped the country since the
crisis began was easing Sunday, the first day of the week in Egypt. Some
schools reopened for the first time in more than a week, and banks did
the same for only three hours with long lines outside. However, there is
still a night curfew, and tanks ringing the city's central square and
guarding government buildings, embassies and other important
institutions.
At the epicenter of the protests, Tahrir
(Liberation) Square in central Cairo, some activists said they had slept
under army tanks ringing the plaza for fear they would try to evict
them or further confine the area for demonstrations. The crowd of
thousands in the morning swelled steadily over the day to tens of
thousands in the late afternoon. Many were exhausted and wounded from
fighting to stand their ground for more than a week in the square.
"We
are determined to press on until our number one demand is met," said
Khaled Abdul-Hameed, a representative of the protesters.
He said
the activists have formed a 10-member "Coalition of the Youths of
Egypt's Revolution," to relay their positions to politicians and public
figures negotiating with the regime.
"The regime is retreating. It is making more concessions everyday," Abdul-Hameed said.
Mubarak
is insisting he cannot stand down now or it would only deepen the chaos
in his country. The United States shifted signals and gave key backing
to the regime's gradual changes on Saturday, warning of the dangers if
Mubarak goes too quickly.
The opposition groups represented at
the meeting included the youthful supporters of ElBaradei, who are one
of the main forces organizing the protests. ElBaradei was not invited
and his brother said the statement by those who did attend does not
represent his personal view.
The Muslim Brotherhood and a number
of smaller leftist, liberal groups also attended, according to footage
shown on state television.
The government offered to open an
office that would field complaints about political prisoners, according
to the state news agency. It also pledged to commission judicial
authorities to fight corruption and prosecute those behind it. In
another concession, authorities promised to investigate and prosecute
those responsible for the yet unexplained disappearance of police from
Cairo's streets more than a week ago, which unleashed a wave of lawless
looting and arson.
The offer to eventually lift emergency laws
when security permits would fulfill a longtime demand by the opposition.
The laws were imposed by Mubarak when he took office in 1981 and they
have been in force ever since. They give police far-reaching powers for
detention and suppression of civil and human rights.
The
government agreed to set up a committee that includes public and
independent figures and specialists and representatives of youth
movements to monitor the "honest implementation" of all the new
agreements and to report back and give recommendations to Suleiman.
Before
the meetings, the Muslim Brotherhood made clear it would insist on
Mubarak's immediate ouster. The fundamentalist Islamic group, which has
been outlawed since 1954 but fields candidates in parliamentary
elections as independents, did not organize or lead the protests
currently under way and only publicly threw its support behind them a
few days into the movement. It only ordered its supporters to take part
when it sensed that the protesters, mostly young men and women using
social networks on the Internet to mobilize, were able to sustain their
momentum.
There have been no known discussions between the
Brotherhood and the regime in years — one of many startling shifts in
policy after years of crackdowns by the Western-backed regime against
the Islamists.
Both Mubarak and Suleiman have blamed the
Brotherhood as well as foreigners of fomenting the recent unrest.
Mubarak is known to have little or no tolerance for Islamist groups and
the decision to open talks with the Brotherhood is a tacit recognition
by his regime of their key role in the ongoing protests as well as their
wide popular base.
The Brotherhood aims to create an Islamic
state in Egypt, but insists that it would not force women to cover up in
public in line with Islam's teachings and would not rescind Egypt's
1979 peace treaty with Israel.
At Tahrir Square, hundreds
performed the noon prayers and later offered a prayer for the souls of
protesters killed in clashes with security forces. Later, Christians
held a Sunday Mass and thousands of Muslims joined in.
Some of the worshippers broke down and cried as the congregation sang: "Bless our country, listen to the screams of our hearts."
"In
the name of Jesus and Muhammad we unify our ranks," Father Ihab
al-Kharat said in his sermon. "We will keep protesting until the fall of
the tyranny," he said.