<START> Egypt's press to protest new constitution Journalists have complained that the constitution approved last week, which will be put to a referendum a week on Saturday, is a risk to free speech because it bans insulting either people or the "Prophet Mohammed and his messengers." Several independent newspapers will join the strike, with several printing the same cartoon on their front page yesterday, showing a prisoner covered in newsprint behind bars and adding "No to dictatorship." The 15 newspapers and three television stations which agreed to suspend publication or blackout their screens were responding to a call from the journalists' union after the constitution was pushed through in a marathon 16-hour session overnight on Thursday. It guarantees freedom of speech and the right to start a newspaper, but balances that with a warning that "insulting the person" and insulting religious figures will not be tolerated. The journalists have joined not only liberal and leftist political parties and activists in opposing the constitution, but also judges of the constitutional court, which has found itself sidelined by a decree by President Mohammed Morsi that his own "sovereign decisions" as well as the constitutional assembly are beyond legal challenge. The prospect of a general judicial boycott of the referendum, which would pose difficulties as judges normally oversee ballot boxes in Egypt, receded however on Monday when the Supreme Judicial Council agreed to provide monitors. The unofficial Judges' Club had called for members to refuse to take part.