The Misdemeanour Court in Minya issued a verdict Sunday to acquit 11 Muslim Brotherhood members accused of rioting and violence in Minya, Upper Egypt, said Brotherhood spokeswoman Wafaa El-Banna.

The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL), an alliance formed to support toppled President Mohamed Morsy in 2013, announced Saturday it had no links to armed groups that commit violence in the country.

The forcible dispersal of two pro-Mohamed Mursi protest camps on August 14, 2013 will remain "the eternal anniversary of martyred policemen," state-run news agency MENA quoted Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim as saying.

Salafist preacher and godfather of the Nour party Yasser Borhamy has been summoned by the prosecution over accusations he insulted Christianity.

The Muslim Brotherhood has denied all accusations of violence by the army and rejects “the violence by the military junta”, the group said in an official statement released on Saturday.

Egyptian security forces firing tear gas have quashed small, scattered demonstrations by Islamist supporters of ousted President Mohammad Mursi who tried to commemorate the anniversary of the killing of hundreds of protesters.

Major General Amin Ezz Eddin, Alexandria security chief, said security forces dispersed three marches by the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday. Five protesters were arrested.

At least four persons were killed in clashes between alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police forces on Thursday, the first anniversary of the bloody clearing of a sit-in supporting ousted president Mohamed Morsi last August, said Al-Ahram's Arabic news website.

The recent wave of violence against innocent families and children in Iraq has rendered the world shocked and horrified. We will not remain indifferent or silent before such irrational persecution, cultural intolerance and appalling loss of life, especially when it is caused by religious hatred and racial hostility.

An Islamist protester and a policeman were shot dead in Cairo on Thursday, security sources said, one year after government forces killed hundreds of demonstrators in the worst bloodshed in Egypt's recent history.

Jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group have taken control of a string of villages in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup Alliance condemned Sunday the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), describing it as an unlawful and void decision.

Pope Francis has called on the international community and the United Nations in particular to do all they can to stop the "systematic violence" against ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq.

A small group of Gazan Christians are facing hardship as the conflict between Israel and Gaza has continued for one month.

Human Rights Watch has described last year's killings during the dispersal of two Cairo protest camps held by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi as planned in advance and likely "a crime against humanity".

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in on 14 August 2013 “probably” amounted to crimes against humanity, in a report based on a one-year investigation.

The Salafist Nour Party will hold Tuesday a number of extensive meetings to complete the party’s preparation for the coming parliamentary election, and members say it plans to issue its candidate list by the end of August.

Iraqi Christians who fled a jihadist onslaught and are packed several families to a room in a church in Kurdistan have lost hope in their country and long to emigrate.

The Muslim Brotherhood-led National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) has called on its loyalists to flock to squares on Thursday, the first anniversary of the violent dispersal of their protest camps.

Egypt has extended its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood to include burning books it says promote violence and ideas linked to the banned Islamist group, a local official and a security source said on Saturday.

Egypt's prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat referred on Sunday 31 suspects to the criminal court over the killing of four Shiites last year.