Egyptian protesters demonstrate in the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla el-Kubra (Reuters/ Stringer Egypt)

RT:

Anti-government protesters in Mahalla, Egypt’s largest industrial city, have reportedly taken over the local city council and announced their autonomy from the state ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

­Protesters threw the head of their city council out of the building, announcing they “no longer belong to the Ikhwani state,” the Daily News Egypt reports.

Workers have attempted to create a “revolutionary council” and rule the industrial city, report suggests. The head of the Mahalla City Council, Ismail Fathy, however, denied the claims.

“The demonstrations, which attracted around 3,000 people, were peaceful,” he told satellite TV channel CBC in a phone interview. “Nothing of this sort happened.”

Mokhtar El-Ashri, the senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, also denied reports of Mahalla’s announcement to secede.

“I was in Mahalla all day, I did not see any of this happening,” he told CBC.

El-Mahalla el-Kubra, a city north of Cairo home to 450,000, was dubbed the cradle of the Egyptian revolution. The opposition April 6 movement was formed there in 2009, and the first major anti-government protests also took place there.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports circulating on Twitter suggest that protesters in four more Egyptian cities – Alexandria, Kafr Sheikh, Sharqaya and Sohag – have declared independence, announcing that President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have lost the legitimacy to rule following the deadly clashes in Cairo that left at least seven people killed and hundreds injured.

The Egypt Independent confirmed clashes between opponents and supporters of President Morsi in Alexandria on Friday evening, adding that demonstrators had broken into the city’s local council building.

Meanwhile in Tanta, Egypt’s fifth-largest city, a crowd of anti-government protesters reportedly torched the Freedom and Justice Party’s local headquarters.

Tens of thousands of anti-Mohamed Morsi protesters gather in front of the presidential palace on December 7, 2012 in Cairo (AFP Photo / Patrick Baz)

Hoda Osman, president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist  Association, believes that as public discontent in the streets grows,  President Morsi is repeating his predecessor’s mistakes.

“There  are lots of feelings against the Muslim Brotherhood by a lot of  Egyptians, especially because of the role they played right after the  revolution,” she explained. “A lot of people saw that they were  close to the army and the army was responsible for a lot of the problems  that we were seeing.”

Egyptians are seeing another dictator in the making – “they are seeing another Mubarak,” Osman said.

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Walid Phares posted this on his facebook page:

demonstrators painted a slogan on the ground: “Morsi step down”

Egypt rises up against Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood.