• 05:58
  • Thursday ,16 October 2014
العربية

Student Protests Continue in Egypt Despite Crackdown

By-nytimes

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00:10

Thursday ,16 October 2014

Student Protests Continue in Egypt Despite Crackdown

Apparently undeterred by scores of recent arrests and the threat of expulsion, Egyptian students continued to protest Tuesday against the military-backed government that seized power last year, according to Aswat Masriya, an Egyptian news site sponsored by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 
Egypt’s Interior Ministry said that 30 students were arrested at the University of Alexandria, where protesters denounced the arrest of student leaders in predawn raids on their homes and opposed new rules allowing the police to enter campuses to stifle demonstrations.
 
At least four students were injured, a university official said, including one student who had a fractured skull.
 
In a tweet illustrated with a graphic image, Youssof Salhen, a spokesman for Students Against the Coup, a national coalition of groups, accused the police of firing live ammunition, birdshot pellets and tear-gas when they raided the campus.
 
University campuses emerged as bastions of opposition in 2013, after the military deposed Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Soon after the takeover, the military-backed government passed a law to effectively ban unsanctioned protests, but rules that had barred the police from entering university grounds allowed students to demonstrate against the military ouster of Mr. Morsi.
 
Ahead of the start of the new school year this week, a court overturned a 2010 ruling that had barred officers from policing campuses, and the authorities made scores of pre-emptive arrests and compelled students to endure daily screening by private security guards.
 
Activists shared video on social networks that appeared to show hundreds of protesters rallying at the campus gates and images of wounded, bleeding demonstrators after the security forces attacked.