Egyptian court sentences 19 students to jail terms

An Egyptian court has sentenced 19 students accused of rioting in clashes that happened last December in the North African country to five years in prison.

On Monday, the court also fined the students, all from the al-Azhar University, $14,358 each.

The trial of another 55 students in the same case was postponed to March 17.

The prison sentence comes as another Egyptian court has approved the return of security forces to university campuses after they were banned from campuses by a High Administrative Court ruling in 2010.

The defendants were sentenced on charges of thuggery, disturbing traffic, attacking police forces, resisting the authorities and protesting without police permits.

Egyptian universities have witnessed many clashes since the ouster of the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in July.

The police have frequently stormed universities to break up protests, killing a number of students and arresting dozens of them.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3, 2013, when the army ousted Morsi, suspended the constitution, and dissolved the parliament. It also appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mahmoud Mansour as the interim president.

The interim government of Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, which resigned on February 24, 2014, launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi’s supporters and arrested thousands of Brotherhood members, including the party’s senior leaders.

On December 25, the military-appointed government listed the movement as a “terrorist” organization over alleged involvement in a deadly bombing, without investigating or providing any evidence.

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

According to the UK-based rights group, 1,400 people have been killed in the political violence since Morsi’s ouster, “most of them due to excessive force used by security forces.”