Egypt police fire tear gas at protesters in Cairo

300 Muslim Brotherhood-supporting university students block road near Defense Ministry, chanted anti-police and army slogans.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, REUTERS
Cairo University students supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. (photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer)
Cairo University students supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
(photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer)
Egyptian police fired tear gas and water cannons at hundreds of Islamist protesters demonstrating near the Defense Ministry in Cairo on Wednesday.
Some 300 university students from the Muslim Brotherhood had blocked a road near the ministry and chanted anti-police and -army slogans, the state-run Al-Ahram website said.
“The police had to use water cannons and tear gas after the students refused to open the street and leave,” Al-Ahram wrote, adding that some protesters were arrested.
Police also fired tear gas on Islamist student protesters from the state’s main university in the Nile Delta city of Zakazik, deposed president Mohamed Morsi’s hometown.
Students supporting Morsi have been staging daily protests inside and outside their universities since the start of the academic year in September. At least 10 students have been killed during fighting with the police.
Meanwhile, Egyptian prosecutors began investigating Tuesday night’s attack on the gas pipeline in Sinai. Since Egypt’s revolution in 2011, the pipeline has been attacked numerous times, which caused the stoppage of natural gas exports to Israel.
Reflecting the media frenzy led by supporters of military chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, various consumer products continue to be named after him.
“Here we go again. After the Sisi sandwich, cake, cupcake, jewelry, cooking oil, etc., etc. Here come the Sisi sugar,” the popular Egyptian blogger The Big Pharaoh tweeted on Wednesday. He posted a picture of a Sisi sugar bag.
Separately, in an article on the Egyptian Independent website last month, Ahmed al-Muslemany, presidential spokesman for the interim government, wrote that while there are other important world powers, the US “is still the most important superpower in the world today.” He went on to call for the creation of an international Egyptian lobby, saying his nation needs a lobby like other countries have.