Six female students at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Mansoura University were arrested and referred to the prosecution who ordered their preventative 15-day detention, according to El-Marsad Student Observatory reported. The observatory, which monitors legal cases involving students, added that the six detainees were arrested by campus security after taking an exam, and then by security forces. They were held at Al-Mansoura police station, and faced charges of "rioting and threatening national security". On the same day, four students and one faculty member at Mansoura University were refereed to military prosecution over violence charges. The defendants were arrested in October 2014, after riot police dispersed protests organised by the Students Against the Coup (SAC) movement. SAC, an anti-government student group active in several universities, has been staging protests since the ouster of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. Egyptian authorities have referred hundreds of civilians, including a number of students, to military courts following President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's decree expanding military courts' jurisdiction to include anyone who attacks the state's "vital" facilities. Various human rights organisations condemned the law, including Human Rights Watch, which stated that the law gives military courts "the widest legal authority since the birth of Egypt's modern republic in 1952". At Al-Azhar University, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) reported that a student was arrested for allegedly carrying a Palestinian scarf. The prosecution charged him with "joining a banned group and participating with others in illegal protests".
In a recent development, Al-Azhar University's official media centre, announced that the university's head, Abdel Hay Azab, decided to evict two female students accused of "carrying flyers inciting against the state" from the dormitory.
The students were referred to the university's disciplinary committee for investigation.
Since the start of the academic year on 11 October 2014, over 300 students have been arrested, while tens have either been expelled by universities or referred to investigation, according to AFTE.
