Police have arrested 40 supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood during protests held following Friday prayers.

Security sources alleged that demonstrators in the capital, Cairo, and Alexandria shouted slogans against the country’s armed forces.

Meanwhile, police said that the detained people were in possession of fireworks, digital cameras and “incendiary leaflets.”

Buckshot rounds and a knife were seized from protesters in Cairo’s Giza District, the sources said.

In a statement released ahead of the Friday protests, a coalition of supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the country’s ousted president, said the “revolution will persist peacefully in the streets and squares.”

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since Morsi was ousted on July 3, 2013.

Over the past year, the Brotherhood and other Morsi supporters have continued to stage weekly protests that often turn into violent street clashes with security forces and civilian opponents.

Human rights groups say some 1,400 people have been killed in the turmoil since the ouster of Morsi, which was led by the current president and the former head of the armed forces of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

In November last year, the military-backed authorities passed a law banning all but police-sanctioned protests. Since then, hundreds of anti-government protesters have been jailed for staging demonstrations.