In addition to a state of emergency suspending the right to due process and other limits on the police, the new government has imposed a strict curfew of 7 p.m. in half the country as well as the capital, a normally frenetic 24-hour city of about 20 million. And unlike previous efforts to impose such restrictions under Mr. Mubarak or the generals who took power from him, this one has scared residents into obedience.

“Sisi is treating us as if we are not human,” said Sarah Gad, 24, a software engineer in a full-face veil, complaining about the intense crowds as people rushed to squeeze in their round-the-clock schedules before the curfew. “They are packing us into subway cars as if we were chickens and making all the people sleep at 7 p.m.”

In at least one neighborhood, Shobra, demonstrators met enough hostility from the neighbors that their crowd dispersed within a few hours, witnesses said.

There were no signs of weapons at Friday’s demonstrations. It was a stark change from the conspicuous presence of guns among civilian supporters and opponents of General Sisi’s takeover during demonstrations last week that plunged Cairo into violent chaos. Around the country, state media reported only one death during Friday’s demonstrations, in the city of Tanta.

Despite the decimation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership, the protests appeared well planned and organized, suggesting some continued coordination.

Many of the demonstrators arrived with freshly printed T-shirts or signs emblazoned with a sophisticated graphic image of a black hand raising four fingers against a bright yellow background: the new logo of the movement against the military takeover. The feminine form of the Arabic word for “fourth” sounds almost the same as Rabaa, the name of the square where tens of thousands of Morsi supporters staged a sit-in for six weeks and where more than 700 died on Aug. 14 when security forces dispersed them.