CAIRO: Students from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) staged protests Wednesday at universities across Egypt, against jail sentences handed down to 25 members of the group who were tried by a military court.
The trial of 40 members of the MB ended Tuesday with sentences ranging from three to 10 years for 25 of the accused members, while 15 were acquitted.
Mohamed Khayrat El Shater (the number three in the group) and Hassan Malek both received seven-year-sentences.
Security forces barricaded the universities, forbidding journalists from entering some campuses. Sources told Daily News Egypt that 19 universities saw protests Wednesday, among which are Cairo, Fayyoum, Al-Azhar, Menufiya, Zagazig and Alexandria University.
Riot police clashed with Cairo University students who attempted to take the riots outside the university premises. About 500 people were demonstrating and the police began to beat us up, Ahmed Ali, a student affiliated with the opposition movement told AFP by telephone.
Five students were lightly injured in the clashes, he said.A press conference concluded the protests at Cairo University, with the participation of Medhat Assem, and Laila Suef, from the March 9 Group which advocates the independence of Egypt s public universities.
Suef expressed solidarity with the professors who received jail sentences, including Dr Essam Hashish, a professor at the Faculty of Engineering, who was sentenced to three years in prison, as well as Dr Mahmoud Abuzaid, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, who also received a three-year-sentence.
Dr Rashad Bayoumi, professor at Cairo University, told Daily News Egypt that the protests were unplanned but were rather a natural reaction to Tuesday’s sentences against those whose only crime was calling for reform. Sources confirmed to Daily News Egypt that around 2,000 demonstrated at Al-Azhar University from 9 am to 1:30 pm, demanding an end to the trial of civilians in military courts.
The protests reportedly started at the Faculty of Education and spread to the rest of the campus, with protestors shouting slogans such as, “Oh Egypt, oh Egypt, after difficulty comes ease, and “Why the military [trial]? Did they steal or kill?
Al-Azhar professors delivered speeches condemning the jail sentences, among which was Dr Mohamed El-Beltagy, secretary general of the MB parliamentary bloc, who said that the crackdown will not affect the MB or their peaceful agenda for change and reform.
Sources at Zagazig University said that there were around 4,000 protestors carrying banners inside their campus that read slogans like “Reform in Egypt is worth a 10-year-sentence.
A statement distributed among the students read, “The system that failed to rule against those who killed our children by contaminated blood bags, drowned our families in the death ferry and burnt them in Upper Egypt’s train, failed to protect our soldiers against Zionist aggression, and was impotent against American arrogance when a cargo ship cold-bloodedly murdered an Egyptian. It is the same system that failed to provide a decent life for its sons.
The students denounced the prison sentences handed down to the MB members and addressed the “corrupt, unjust regime, calling for their release.
