Egypt's second biggest Islamist party, Nour, on Friday rejected proposed changes to the constitution that would outlaw parties founded on religious grounds, and called the move a "sword drawn" against Islamists.
The proposal, made during meetings of the constitutional committee this week but not yet formally approved, came days after a Cairo court separately banned the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's dominant Islamist force.
"It's wrong to blame the whole Islamist current for the mistakes of the Muslim Brotherhood," said Nour Party head Younes Makhyoun in a statement. "We reject this article completely because it is discriminatory and exclusionary.
"By what right does this article aim a drawn sword at some parties? Are we going to put an article in the constitution that bans founding parties on liberal, secular, socialist or Nasserist grounds?"
Islamist political parties formed after the downfall of veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 dominated elections, and the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi became Egypt's first freely elected president.
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