Protesters throw stones during clashes with riot police in front of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. (File photo)
Egyptian police have clashed with supporters of the country’s ousted President Mohamed Morsi at the dormitories of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
According to a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, police on Sunday fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse the students in eastern Cairo.
A number of students were wounded in the clashes, student Spokesman Mahmoud Salah said, adding that the police fired shotgun pellets. However, Egypt’s security agencies always deny using them.
Universities across Egypt have become the scene of protests by Morsi’s supporters since the start of the school year in September.
In November, a court in the North African country sentenced 12 pro-Morsi students from Al-Azhar to 17 years in prison for attacking the university’s headquarters in October.
Another 21 students from the university were referred to trial on Sunday.
The new referral and the university security’s crackdown against female demonstrators earlier in the day sparked Sunday’s protests, Salah said.
Students at a university in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura as well as at Cairo University also staged protests on Sunday.
Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3, when the army ousted Morsi’s government, suspended the constitution and dissolved the parliament. It also appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, as the new interim president.
The government of Mansour has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi supporters and arrested more than 2,000 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the party’s leader Mohamed Badie, who was detained on August 20.
About 1,000 people were killed in a week of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces after police dispersed their protest camps in a deadly operation on August 14.
The massacre sparked international condemnation and prompted world bodies to call for an independent investigation into the violence.
MR/HN/AS
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