International

Students killed during clashes on Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University

Authorities fired tear gas to disperse student protesters who state-run media say were stopping others from taking exams

Student demonstrators gather at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University on Saturday.
Reuters

One student was killed after being shot and more than 100 others were arrested in Egypt on Saturday when demonstrators opposed to the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi clashed with police at the Cairo campus of Al-Azhar University, state media reported.

Another student also later died from gunshot wounds, sources at the hospital where the student was being treated told Al Jazeera. 

State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said the clashes began when security forces fired tear gas to disperse student protesters who were allegedly preventing other students from entering university buildings to take exams. Some protesters threw rocks at the police and set tires on fire to counter the tear gas attacks.

State TV broadcast footage of black smoke billowing from the faculty of commerce building and reported that protesters also set the agriculture faculty building on fire.

Al-Azhar University, a center of Sunni Islamic learning, has for months been the scene of protests against what the politically powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement — which the state earlier this week designated a "terrorist" organization — has called a "military coup" that deposed Morsi after a year in office.

The Ministry of Health said that one student who died on Saturday was killed after being hit in the face with birdshot, and that four others were injured during Saturday's violence.

Youssof Salheen, a spokesman for the Students Against the Coup movement, identified one of the deceased to Al Jazeera as Khaled El-Haddad, a student at Al-Azhar's School of Commerce, but did not clarify the cause of death.

Police arrested 101 students for possession of makeshift weapons including petrol bombs, the state news agency reported. Following the violence, authorities restored calm and exams resumed, Reuters reported. 

Rising tensions

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The violence on Saturday followed clashes across the country Friday in which at least five people died.

Anti-coup demonstrators took to the streets on Friday after the government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist" organization — a move that increases the penalties for dissent against the military-led government installed after Morsi was overthrown.

Morsi was the country's first elected president. He assumed office after long-time president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011.

The army-backed government appears bent on clamping down on dissent ahead of a referendum next month on a new constitution, a step that will pave the way for parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt.

Thousands of Brotherhood members have been arrested. On Friday, more than 250 people were arrested using the new classification of the movement.

The government has not provided evidence linking the Brotherhood to the recent attacks on security forces and state institutions.

Despite that, authorities accused the Brotherhood of carrying out a suicide attack on a police station that killed 16 people Tuesday, even though it was claimed by a radical faction based in the Sinai Peninsula. 

Al Jazeera and wire services 

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