500 Morsi supports to go on trial in Egypt

Nearly 500 supporters of Egypt’s ousted President Mohamed Morsi are going to stand trial next month as the Egyptian government continues its relentless crackdown on dissidents.

The 494 defendants will go on trial on July 16 over violent clashes that killed 44 people and wounded 59 others, including soldiers and policemen, in Cairo’s central neighborhood of Ramses in August 2013, Egypt’s state news agency MENA reported on Tuesday.

The report added that prosecutors have charged the men with “murder, attempted murder, assaulting police officers, carrying weapons and damaging public and private installations.”

The development comes as an Egyptian court has upheld the death sentences issued for 183 Muslim Brotherhood members, including the movement’s spiritual leader, Mohamed Badie.

The sentence was delivered Saturday by a military-installed court in the town of Minya, south of Cairo.

Later in the say, Egyptian activists, angry at the government’s crackdown on supporters of Muslim Brotherhood, staged protest gatherings across the country to denounce the measures.

The protesters clashed with security forces in Cairo and in Dakahlia Province, condemning the death sentences given to the Brotherhood members.

On June 7, an Egyptian court sentenced 10 supporters of Muslim Brotherhood to death in absentia.

Those sentenced were reportedly convicted on charges including inciting violence and blocking a major road north of Cairo during protests after Morsi’s ouster in July 2013.

All 10 were assumed to be in hiding amid a state crackdown on the group since Morsi’s ouster. One of those sentenced was Abdul Rahman al-Barr, a member of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Council, the movement’s executive board.

Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, a well-known Muslim cleric who fled to Qatar after Morsi was toppled, was also sentenced in absentia.

Egypt’s military rulers have accused the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to destabilize the country, arresting thousands of its supporters amid the ongoing crackdown on the movement.

Since Morsi’s ouster, a crackdown launched by the military-installed authorities on his supporters have left more than 1,400 people dead in street clashes and at least 15,000 jailed.

MP/NN