Clashes at Cairo University between security forces and students protesting Monday’s mass death sentence for hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters have left one student dead and eight injured, the health ministry reported on Wednesday.
The clashes began when the pro-Brotherhood students tried to move their protest from the university’s campus to nearby Al-Nahda Square and were met by security forces, who forced the students back onto the campus, state-run TV reported.
The students shot fireworks at the police and pelted them with stones, state-run TV added.
Private TV channel CBC showed large groups of students running in the vicinity of the university campus and police moving to disperse students gathered in Al-Nahda Square – site of a protest camp for ousted president Mohamed Morsi that was violently cleared by security forces in August.
Brotherhood supporters had previously announced they would protest on Wednesday against the ruling of a court in Minya on Monday in which 529 persons loyal to ousted president Mohamed Morsi were given the death penalty on charges of killing a police officer, among others.
The verdict is expected to be appealed.
A security source told Al-Ahram’s Arabic newspaper that groups of pro-Morsi students also protested on Wednesday at Zagazig University in Sharqiya governorate. Twelve people were wounded in clashes that ensued between supporting and opposing students.
The source said rioting students smashed the glass facade of the university’s administration building and attacked a number of students and cars.
Police in Zagazig arrested eight rioters and brought the situation “under control,” the security source added.
Source: Ahram Online
