Students throw stones at riot police in front of Al Azhar University in Cairo yesterday.

Agencies/Cairo


Egyptian security forces yesterday fired teargas to disperse students protesting in support of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, security officials said.
The protesters marched outside the campus of Al Azhar University in Cairo and blocked a main road as they chanted against the military that overthrew Mursi in July amid massive protests against his rule.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, as police fired teargas and birdshot to disperse the students.
By late afternoon soldiers had dispersed the protesters and reopened the road, littered with stones and teargas canisters, an AFP correspondent said.
As police and Mursi opponents have violently broken up Islamist protests on the streets, supporters of the ousted president have sought to regroup on campuses to press their demand for his reinstatement.
Demonstrations took place last week at the universities of Al Azhar and Cairo, where scuffles broke out between supporters and opponents of Mursi.
The military ousted Mursi on July 3 after millions took to the streets demanding his resignation one year after he became the country’s first freely elected president.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Mursi’s backers, were killed in clashes in an ensuing crackdown on the former president’s Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Another 2,000 people, mostly Islamists, have been detained.
Mursi, held at an unknown location since his removal, is to stand trial next month over deadly clashes between his supporters and opponents outside the presidential palace in December 2012.
Interim President Adly Mansour was quoted by the state news agency as saying in a meeting with General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief who toppled Mursi, and the interior minister that “imposing security was the main priority at this important stage”.
Since Mursi’s overthrow, attacks by Islamist militants have increased, particularly against police and soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel.
Three policemen were killed yesterday when masked men attacked a checkpoint in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, security sources said.
No group has claimed responsibility.
Three men in a car and one on a motorcycle approached the checkpoint before dawn and fired at the policemen “to make sure that they were dead”, a security source in Mansoura said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“This is another attack in the series of terrorist attacks against the police,” he said. He did not specify who had carried out the attack. State-run newspaper Al Ahram reported that 60 bullet casings were found at the site.


Egypt probes complaint against satirist

Egypt’s state prosecutor ordered yesterday a probe into a complaint against television satirist Bassem Youssef after his show mocked both the military chief and the formerly ruling Islamists, a judicial source said.
Youssef, known as ‘Egypt’s Jon Stewart’ for modelling his show after the American comedian, debuted a new season on Friday in his first episode since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July.
State prosecutor Hisham Barakat ordered the investigation into one of several complaints against Youssef, which accuses him of inciting chaos and harming public security, the source said.
The complaint stems from a segment in the show in which a woman describes an unhappy marriage, symbolising Mursi, before a cousin representing the military saves her, the source said.
The complaint also accuses Youssef of insulting the armed forces.
The satirist had poked fun at leaked comments by military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in which the colonel general discussed developing “arms” in the media to improve coverage of the military.