Anti-Morsi lecturer drops London University speech

A guest lecturer at a London university has had to abandon his speech on Egypt after supporters of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi chased him from the stage.

Around 30 demonstrators stormed a lecture theater at Bloomsbury’s School of Oriental and African Studies, which is part of the University of London, and forced the speaker Mohamed El-Nabawy to be ushered off stage, the London Evening Standard reported on Thursday.

The protesters held up Rabia signs — a hand sign by raising 4 fingers which has become the symbol of the massacre in Egypt as well as Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, where anti-coup protests take place — and chanted slogans against Nabawy over his affiliation to Egyptian grassroots movement Tamarod that largely contributed to the July 3 military coup against Morsi.

The situation quickly calmed down after the speaker left.

Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected head of state, was put on trial on November 4 on charges of inciting the killing of protesters outside the presidential palace in 2012.

At the hearing, Morsi reportedly called himself the legitimate president of Egypt and dismissed the trial as “farce.”

“This was a military coup. The leaders of the coup should be tried. A coup is treason and a crime,” he said.

The trial was adjourned to January 8, and Morsi, who has been detained at a secret location since his removal, was transferred to a prison in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3. The government of Mansour has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi supporters and arrested more than 2,000 Brotherhood members, including the party’s leader, Mohamed Badie, who was detained on August 20.

About 1,000 people were killed in a week of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces after police dispersed their protest camps in a deadly operation on August 14.

The massacre sparked international condemnation and prompted world bodies to call for an independent investigation into the violence.