Pro-democracy Azhar students step up campus protests

According to eyewitnesses, student protesters blocked traffic outside the university, scaled public buses and raised the four-finger 'Rabaa salute' symbolizing the six-week pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawaiya Square violently broken up by security forces in mid-August.

Protesting students also stuck posters depicting the Rabaa sign on cars belonging to university administrators, witnesses said.

Inside the campus, student protesters besieged the university administrative building, raising the Rabaa sign and chanting slogans against the army.

The escalation comes one week before Morsi is set to appear in court, where he will face charges of inciting the killing of demonstrators outside the presidential palace last December.

The National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy, Morsi's main support bloc, and the Batel ("Void") Campaign, which lobbies against Morsi's ouster, have both called on members to stage mass demonstrations across Egypt on the eve of the trial.

Egyptian authorities have yet to announce where Morsi's trial will be held.

The ousted president faces other charges as well, which include escaping from prison during Egypt's January 2011 revolution, "conspiring" with foreign parties, "insulting" the judiciary, and "inciting violence and killing" in several parts of the country.

Since his July 3 ouster, Morsi has been held at an unknown location by Egypt's new military-backed rulers.

Morsi supporters, for their part, have continued to hold daily protests and marches for almost four months to demand his reinstatement and the restoration of "constitutional legitimacy."

By Sobhi Megahed 

englishnews@aa.com.tr