An Egyptian court has sentenced six al-Azhar University students to five years in prison and ordered the arrest of hundreds of students for taking part in anti-government demonstrations.
On Monday, the court sentenced the students to the prison term for participating in demonstrations condemning the ouster of Egypt’s first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi.
Three hundred other al-Azhar students were also ordered to be detained.
Al-Azhar has been the scene of repeated clashes between students and police in recent months.
The sentencing is part of the military-backed government’s widening crackdown on Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
On February 2, an Egyptian court sentenced 16 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to prison for taking part in an ‘unauthorized’ demonstration against military-backed interim government last December.
The court sentenced the 16 to five years in prison with hard labor for violating the controversial Protest Law during a 27 December demonstration in the Cairo neighborhood of Nasr City.
Issued by interim President Adly Mansour on November 24, the Protest Law bans protests that do not have prior police notification.
Egypt’s interim government has launched a bloody crackdown on the group since Morsi was deposed in a military coup on July 3.
On December 25, the military-appointed government listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization over alleged involvement in a deadly bombing, without investigating or providing any evidence.
Last month, Amnesty International criticized Egyptian authorities for using an “unprecedented scale” of violence against protesters and dealing “a series of damaging blows to human rights.”
According to the UK-based rights group, 1,400 people have been killed in the political violence since Morsi’s ouster, “most of them due to excessive force used by security forces.”
MN/AS/MAM
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