Fifteen masked protesters stormed the Sadat Metro Station in Tahrir Square at 6 am Sunday morning in an attempt to shut down the metro, the Transportation Ministry said.

The ministry issued a statement saying that the protesters went to the station head and demanded that the station be shut down as part of a civil disobedience initiative against the revised constitutional declaration and the constitutional referendum, scheduled for 15 December.

According to the statement, protesters said they would give the station a “final warning” then shut down the metro.

However, the Transportation police denied that the incident occurred as the ministry described. “Seven disabled people attempted to stop the metro Sunday morning, saying that the president had ignored demands they sent two months ago,” a source with the police said.  

The Metro carries around 3 million passengers daily, said the ministry, which stressed that it is running regularly.

Secular and leftist political forces have been holding a sit-in at Tahrir Square since President Mohamed Morsy issued a constitutional declaration to immunize his decisions against judicial appeal and then called for a referendum on the controversial constitution draft on 15 December. Morsy’s initial declaration was replaced Saturday by a new one that does not exempt his decisions from judicial oversight, but still grants him wide-ranging powers under the duty of “protecting the revolution.”

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm