Muslim Brotherhood supporters and police clashed across Egypt yesterday, leaving at least three dead in protests after the army-backed government declared the group a terrorist organisation.
The violence broke out after Friday prayers and the health ministry said 87 people were injured nationwide in the clashes, which flared in Cairo and at least four other cities.
An 18-year-old Brotherhood supporter was shot dead during clashes in the Nile Delta city of Damietta. A second man was killed in Minya, a bastion of Islamist support south of Cairo, and a third person was killed in the capital, the interior ministry said, without providing further details.
Security forces detained at least 265 Brotherhood supporters nationwide, including at least 28 women, the ministry also said. The widening crackdown has increased tensions in a country suffering the worst internal strife of its modern history since the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July.
Security forces have killed hundreds of his supporters and lethal attacks on soldiers and police have become commonplace.
The Brotherhood was declared a terrorist organisation after 16 people were killed in a suicide attack on a police station on Tuesday, although the group condemned the attack and it was claimed by a radical faction based in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies had called for protests in response to the government decision.
Police fired birdshot and tear gas at student protesters at Al-Azhar’s Cairo campus. Gunfire was heard in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, where demonstrators threw fireworks and rocks at police who used teargas, a Reuters witness said.
A number of police officers were injured in the clashes, the interior ministry said.
Security forces detain at least 265 Brotherhood supporters
Yesterday, a furniture store was set on fire by residents of a Cairo suburb after police stormed inside and arrested three employees after receiving complaints that the men had firearms and were Brotherhood members.
The government has said the violence will not derail a political transition plan whose next step is a mid-January referendum on a new constitution.
Officials have issued a new round of harsher warnings against anyone taking part in protests in support of the Brotherhood, saying they will be punished under anti-terrorism laws that envisage five years imprisonment.
Jail terms for those convicted under the terrorism law can stretch up to life imprisonment and Brotherhood leaders face the death penalty.
The Brotherhood, which won every election since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011, has been driven underground since the army deposed the freely elected Morsi in July.
In a statement condemning the government’s freezing of the funds of Islamist charity groups, the Brotherhood accused the government of spreading Christianity by empowering Coptic Christian charities over Islamic ones.