Egyptian security forces have stormed a university in the capital Cairo to quell student protests against the military-backed government.
On Sunday, police stormed the campus of Ain Shams University in eastern Cairo to disperse students protesting the persecution of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
Students had gathered on the campus to slam the killing, detainment, indictment, and expulsion of hundreds of students for taking part in anti-government protests. Student unions said several people were injured in the violence.
Protests also erupted in other universities, including Cairo University and al-Azhar University, where students staged a protest outside their campuses.
Students from Cairo University demanded policemen and army personnel deployed on the nearby Nahda Square leave.
Protests were also reported at Zagazig University in the Nile Delta against a presidential bid by former army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi who overthrew Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, nine months ago.
Last month, an Egyptian court sentenced 529 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death.
International bodies and human rights groups denounced the ruling as a grotesque example of the shortcomings of Egypt’s justice system.
“Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries’ use of capital punishment in a year,” Amnesty International said in a statement issued on March 24.
Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since Morsi was ousted on July 3, 2013.
In November, the military-backed authorities passed a law banning all but police-sanctioned protests. Since then, hundreds of anti-government protesters have been jailed for breaking the law.
Figures show Egypt’s military-backed government has jailed nearly 16,000 people over the past few months.
Anti-government demonstrators have been holding rallies almost on a daily basis, demanding that Morsi be reinstated.
Rights groups say at least 1,400 people have been killed in the violence since the ouster of Morsi, “most of them due to excessive force used by security forces.”