Egypt’s police attack protest rallies, kill 3 students

At least three students have reportedly been killed after Egyptian security guards attacked anti-government protest rallies in several cities across the North African country.

According to reports, Egyptian riot police fired tear gas and birdshots to break up the anti-government demonstrations held in several university campuses across Egypt, including the campus of al-Azhar University in the capital, Cairo, on Wednesday.

During the protests, the Egyptian students called for the reinstatement of the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who had been deposed by the military in July last year.

Reports further said Egyptian security forces arrested a number of pro-Morsi students participating in the demonstrations, as the military-installed government continues its clampdown on dissent.

Earlier on Wednesday, government forces also broke up a similar protest rally in Egypt’s northern Delta province of Damietta.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since the country’s former president was ousted. Hundreds have lost their lives in the ensuing violence across the country.

Since July 2013, Egypt’s military-backed government has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi’s supporters and arrested thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, including the party’s senior leaders.

According to a report recently released by the Associated Press, Egypt’s military-backed government has jailed nearly 16,000 people since Morsi’s removal. About 3,000 Muslim Brotherhood members have also been among those put behind bars.

Amnesty International has criticized Egyptian authorities for using an “unprecedented scale” of violence against protesters and dealing “a series of damaging blows to human rights.”