Saturday 28 December 2013

Cairo al-Azhar campus torched amid Egypt protests

A student has been killed in Egypt as
supporters of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood
clashed with police and university buildings
were set on fire.
State TV blamed protesters for the fire at al-Azhar
University's business faculty, where exams had to be
postponed, and the agriculture faculty.
The Brotherhood said police were "fabricating" the
charges.
The crackdown on the group began when President
Mohammed Morsi, who belongs to it, was deposed by
the army in July.
The campus fires had been brought under control by
Saturday afternoon, and some 60 people had been
arrested, reports said.
The Brotherhood, which had been banned since
September from all activity, was declared a terrorist
group on Wednesday following a suicide bombing of
a police headquarters in the Nile Delta.
The government said the Brotherhood was behind
the attack - a charge it strongly denied.
It is the latest measure taken against the group,
which is being targeted by the military-backed
interim government. Thousands of Brotherhood
members, including its leadership, have been
arrested and many put on trial.
Members were rounded up on Thursday after a bomb
hit a bus in Cairo, injuring five people.
Three people died on Friday as police fought
Brotherhood supporters in Cairo, southern Minya and
the Nile Delta.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Egyptian
counterpart to "express concern" about the recent
waves of arrests and called for an "inclusive political
process", state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki
said.
Al-Azhar, one of the main centres of Sunni Muslim
learning, has been the scene of repeated clashes
between Islamist students and police in recent
months.
Mr Morsi's government - the first to be
democratically elected in Egypt - was toppled on 3
July following widespread anti-Brotherhood
demonstrations.
The ousted president was arrested and faces several
criminal charges relating to his time in office.
His trial opened in November but has been adjourned
until 8 January.
Earlier this week, Egyptian police arrested Hisham
Qandil, who became Egypt's youngest prime minister
since 1954 in August 2012.
He was caught in a mountainous area with
smugglers trying to flee to Sudan, officials said.
Al-Azhar, one of the main centres of Sunni Muslim
learning, has seen repeated clashes between
students and police
At least three people died as Muslim Brotherhood
supporters clashed with police across Egypt on
Friday
Riot police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse
the protesters
Supporters of the police also clashed with pro-
Brotherhood students
Mr Qandil was sentenced to a year in prison while in
office for not carrying out a court ruling to
renationalise a company that was privatised in 1996.
Although not a member of the Brotherhood or any
other Islamist political organisation, he represented
an alliance of pro-Morsi Islamist groups in meetings
with European Union mediators, who tried to
persuade the military-installed interim government
to launch a fully inclusive transition process that
included the Muslim Brotherhood.
The 85-year-old Islamist movement was banned by
Egypt's military rulers in 1954, but registered an
NGO called the Muslim Brotherhood Association in
March this year in response to a court case bought by
opponents who contested its legal status.
The Brotherhood also has a political wing, the
Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which was set up in
2011 as a "non-theocratic" group after the uprising
that forced President Hosni Mubarak from power.
Following Mr Morsi's overthrow and the suspension of
the Islamist-friendly 2012 constitution, the Cairo
administrative court and the social solidarity ministry
were tasked with reviewing the Brotherhood's legal
status.
In September, a ruling by the Cairo Court for Urgent
Matters banned the Brotherhood itself, the NGO, as
well as "any institution derived from or belonging to
the Brotherhood" or "receiving financial support from
it".

Sent From David Aniemeka

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