UPDATED AT 3:55 p.m. ET: CAIRO, Egypt -- After Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi received a final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, he called for a Dec. 15 referendum and urged a national dialogue.

This latest move indicates that the president aims to appease demonstrators who accused him last week of attempting to assume Pharoah-like status after he expanded his presidential powers.

The protests come from both sides -- on Saturday, at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo in support of Morsi.

"The people want the implementation of God's law," chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bused in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Morsi set the date for a referendum on the constitution after it was hastily approved after a 19-hour session.

Morsi plunged Egypt into a crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt's democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt's 83 million people.

Analysis: Egyptians fear decades of Muslim Brotherhood rule, warn Morsi is no friend of US

Morsi, once a Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a "no" vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt's quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak's 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

Morsi's well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

"There is no place for dictatorship," the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt's new freedoms.

Video: Morsi loyalists rewrite Egyptian constitution

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women's rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military - though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values."

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt's system of government but retains the previous constitution's reference to "the principles of sharia" as the main source of legislation.

"We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society," said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament's upper house.

Meanwhile, at the protests, two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

PhotoBlog: Dueling demonstrations in Cairo

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Morsi on Friday. "The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted in Cairo's Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

In the protests supporting Morsi, Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support the president's decree. "Those in Tahrir don't represent everyone. Most people support Morsi and aren't against the decree," he said. 

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

"They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says 'no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)'," he told Reuters.

Related: Christians, liberals left out as Islamists back Egypt's draft constitution

"We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect," said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

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A protester runs to throw a tear gas canister back to riot police during clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday. President Mohammed Morsi's declaration last week of new powers for himself has sparked days of demonstrations.

CAIRO — Egyptian protesters and police clashed in Cairo on Tuesday just hours ahead of a planned massive rally by opponents of the country's Islamist president demanding he rescind decrees that granted him near-absolute powers.

Police fired tear gas and hundreds of protesters pelted them with rocks at a street between the U.S. Embassy and Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime nearly two years ago.

The protesters have been staging a sit-in at the square since Friday night to demand President Mohammed Morsi revoke his decrees.

By midday, hundreds were starting to gather in Tahrir, chanting against Morsi's decrees and the Brotherhood. A new banner in the square proclaimed, "The Brotherhood stole the country."

"We are here to bring down the constitutional declaration issued by Morsi," said one protester at Tahrir, Mahmoud Youssef.

Egypt's Morsi, top judges compromise to defuse soaring tensions over decree

Hundreds of lawyers meanwhile gathered outside their union building in downtown Cairo ahead of their march to Tahrir. "Leave, leave," they chanted, addressing Morsi.

The rally planned for later Tuesday, with marches from various parts of Cairo to converge on Tahrir, is to be a significant test of the opposition's ability to bring out supporters and the public against Morsi's edicts issued last week.

The opposition says the decrees give Morsi near dictatorial powers by neutralizing the judiciary at a time when he already holds executive and legislative powers. Key parts of the judicial system have denounced the measures.

Morsi, in office since June, says the decrees are necessary to protect the "revolution" and the nation's transition to democratic rule. His declaration made all his decisions immune to judicial review and banned the courts from dissolving the upper house of parliament and an assembly writing the new constitution, both of which are dominated by Islamists. The decree also gave Morsi sweeping authority to stop any "threats" to the revolution.

Morsi's supporters canceled a massive rally they had planned for Tuesday, citing the need to "defuse tension" after a series of clashes between the two camps since the decrees were issued Thursday.

But a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group from which Morsi hails, said demonstrations supporting the president could go ahead outside the capital and that supporters would form human chains in some provinces to protect Brotherhood offices. Morsi's supporters say more than a dozen of their offices have been ransacked or set ablaze since Friday.

President within his rights?
On Monday, Morsi met with the nation's top judges and tried to win their acceptance of his decrees. But the move was dismissed by many in the opposition and the judiciary as providing no real concessions.

Riot police use tear gas on protesters during clashes in Tahrir Square on Tuesday.

Presidential spokeman Yasser Ali, said Morsi told the judges that he acted within his rights as the nation's sole source of legislation, assuring them that the decrees were temporary and did not in any way infringe on the judiciary. He underlined repeatedly that the president had no plans to change or amend his decrees.

According to a presidential statement late Monday, Morsi told the judges that his decree meant that any decisions he makes on "issues of sovereignty" are immune from judicial review.

The vaguely worded statement did not define those issues, but they were widely interpreted to cover declaration of war, imposition of martial law, breaking diplomatic relations with a foreign nation or dismissing a Cabinet. Morsi's original edict, however, explicitly gives immunity to all his decisions and there was no sign it had been changed.

Photoblog: Protesters in Tahrir Square hold funeral for activist killed in clashes

The statement Monday did not touch the immunity that Morsi gave the constitutional assembly or the upper chamber of parliament, known as the Shura Council. It also did not affect the edict that the president can take any measures he sees as necessary to stop threats to the revolution, stability or public institutions. Many see that edict as granting Morsi unlimited emergency powers.

The Shura Council does not have lawmaking authorities but, in the absence of the more powerful lower chamber, the People's Assembly, it is the only popularly elected, national body where the Brotherhood and other Islamists have a majority. The People's Assembly was dissolved by a court ruling in June.

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Sakchai Lalit / AP

Anti-government protesters calling for Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down, protect their eyes as police fired tear gas to disperse them in Bangkok Saturday.

Thai police fired tear gas in clashes with hundreds of protesters in Bangkok on Saturday ahead of a rally seeking to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in a rally that authorities feared would grow into the biggest demonstration the country has seen since she took office last year.

The rally, which was expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters, was mostly peaceful in its early stages.

Anti-riot police wielding plastic shields fired gas canisters at protesters who tried to climb over cement and barbed wire barriers blocking entry to the rally site. Police said "between 300 and 400 protesters'' clashed with police.

At least seven police were wounded and up to 132 protesters arrested in the clash near the United Nations headquarters in Bangkok, a stone's throw away from the main rally site.

Earlier in the week, Yingluck ordered nearly 17,000 police to deploy and invoked a special security law, citing concerns that the rally could turn violent. She also accused demonstrators of seeking to overthrow her elected government.

The demonstration underscores the still-simmering political divisions that have split the country since the army toppled Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 military coup.

Saturday's protest was organized by a royalist group calling itself "Pitak Siam" — or "Protect Thailand." Led by retired army Gen. Boonlert Kaewprasit, the group accuses Yingluck's administration of corruption, ignoring insults to the revered monarchy and being a puppet of Thaksin.

Addressing several thousand protesters on the rally's central stage on Saturday, Boonlert vowed the demonstration would remain peaceful. But he said: "I promise that Pitak Siam will succeed in driving this government out."

He then led the crowd in a chant: "Yingluck, get out! Yingluck, get out!"

The rally was being held at Bangkok's Royal Plaza, a public space near Parliament that has been used by protesters in the past.

Police allowed protesters into the site, and two roads leading to it were open. But in an effort to control access, security forces erected concrete barriers on another road leading to Royal Plaza. When between 50 to 100 protesters tried to break through one of the barriers, a contingent of around 500 police fired tear gas and beat them back with batons.

While Pitak Siam is a newcomer to Thailand's protest scene, it is linked to the well-known "Yellow Shirt" protesters, whose rallies led to Thaksin's overthrow. The same movement later toppled a Thaksin-allied elected government after occupying and shutting down Bangkok's two airports for a week in 2008.

Thaksin remains a divisive figure in Thai politics. The Yellow Shirts and their allies say he is personally corrupt and accuse him of seeking to undermine the popular constitutional monarch — charges Thaksin denies.

Yingluck was taking Saturday's rally seriously. Her Cabinet invoked the Internal Security Act on Thursday in three Bangkok districts around the protest site, and she later addressed the nation to explain the move, citing concerns of violence.

The security act allows authorities to close roads, impose curfews and ban use of electronic devices in designated areas. Measures began taking effect Thursday night, with police closing roads around Yingluck's office, the Government House, and placing extra security at the homes of senior officials, including the prime minister.

In a nationally televised address Thursday, Yingluck said protest leaders "seek to overthrow an elected government and democratic rule ... and there is evidence that violence may be used to achieve those ends."

National police chief spokesman Maj. Gen. Piya Uthayo said Friday that 16,800 police officers had been called in from around the country to provide security for the rally.

Boonlert, the protest group's leader, is best known for his role as president of the Thailand Boxing Association. His name is unfamiliar in the anti-Thaksin protest movement, but his message appears to have resonated with Yellow Shirt supporters who have laid low in recent years after Yingluck's party won the last elections.

Analysts said they did not view the protest as an immediate threat to Yingluck's government, but were watching it closely.

"Anytime you have tens of thousands of people converging, assembling in a central Bangkok location, it becomes a government stability concern," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

But he added: "I think it's a serious concern more than a serious threat."

Thailand has been gripped by bouts of political instability since 2006, with Thaksin's supporters and opponents taking turns to spar over who has the right to rule the country.

The most violent episode came in 2010, when Thaksin's "Red Shirt" supporters led a two-month occupation of central Bangkok to demand the resignation of an anti-Thaksin government. The protests sparked a military crackdown that left at least 91 people dead and more than 1,700 injured.

Thaksin has lived in self-imposed exile since 2008, when he jumped bail to evade a corruption conviction and two-year jail term. He retains huge popularity among the rural poor, who want to see him pardoned and returned to power. But he is reviled by the urban elite and educated middle class, who see him as authoritarian and a threat to the monarchy.

Buoyed by Thaksin's political machine, Yingluck was elected by a landslide victory in August 2011. She initially was criticized for her lack of political experience — she was an executive in Shinawatra family businesses — but has won praise for leading the country through one of its longest peaceful periods in recent years.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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