The cases of 15 individuals alleged to be members of the banned Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement have been referred to a military court in Egypt on violence-related charges, state-media report.
An Egyptian prosecutor referred the cases of 15 students from Zagazig University in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiyah to a military court on Sunday, Egypt’s official MENA news agency reported.
The charges range from inciting riots, belonging to a terrorist organization, protesting without a notice, and resisting authorities.
The students were arrested after staging an on-campus protest that eventually moved to the Police Club nearby. Reports said the club had been vandalized and students had attacked security forces.
On October 27, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a decree that said all “public and vital facilities” will be placed under military rule for the next two years. The law ordered state prosecutors to refer any crimes at the aforementioned places to their military counterparts.
More than 11,000 people have been tried by Egypt’s military courts since the 2011 uprising that toppled the country’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
The Egyptian government has been cracking down on any opposition since Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, was ousted in July 2013 in a military coup led by Sisi.
Rights groups say the army’s crackdown on the supporters of Morsi has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
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