The Prosecutor General renewed Friday night the detention of 10 female students, after they were charged with committing acts of violence, Al-Marsad Student Observatory reported. The prosecution is awaiting reports from Homeland Security. "The girls were prevented from having a lawyer or any legal representation, and we suspect that they confessed under pressure," a Students Against the Coup (SAC) group spokesperson He added that "most of the girls are students aging between 18 and 20 years". The students were arrested on 5 May, after anti-government protesters staged a demonstration in the village of Al-Basratah village. Riot police dispersed the protest leaving one police conscript dead. Al-Basratah was stormed by police forces, leaving four citizens dead Saturday as security forces attacked the village. Al-Marsad considered the arrests and referral of the students to the prosecution as a "human rights violation", as they had no access to any legal representation. The organisation added that the students were subjected to beatings. In a recent development, seven students from the Al-Azhar University branch in Kafr El-Sheikh were sentenced Saturday to two years in prison, on charges of attacking a member of the university. Last week, Dentistry student Asmaa Hamdy's appeal to halt a five-year prison sentence against her was rejected. According to the ‘Al-Azhar Students Against the Coup' group, the prison administration was "intransigent" and prohibited the detainees from attending their appeal session "under the pretext of not having notified the administration of the session's time". Hamdy and four other female colleagues, Rufaida Ibrahim, Henady Ahmed, Alaa El-Sayed and Afaf Ahmed, have been in prison for approximately 18 months. Hamdy is a third-year student at Al-Azhar University. She was arrested on campus along with the other four students in December 2013. They spent their first months in detention at a police station, then Al-Qanater prison, and later Damanhour prison. In February 2014, she was convicted of "preventing other students from attending exams", and assaulting and stealing EGP 200 from a police officer, among other charges.
