Police arrest 18 alleged MB members during protest in Haram

Security forces arrested 18 purported Muslim Brotherhood members during a protest in Haram on Friday, the state-owned news site Ahram Gate reported.

The demonstrators were arrested after they blocked Haram Street and entered into an altercation with the police, who responded by firing tear gas. Police allegedly confiscated firearms, knives and flares during the arrest.

Police forces claimed to have received reports that the suspects had been meeting on Tersa Street and neighboring alleys in the northern Giza district to orchestrate student protests against the military and police starting on October 11, the start of the new academic year. Security officials accused them of using social media platforms to plan the demonstrations.

Ahram Gate reported that several additional Brotherhood-affiliated marches also took place in other parts of Giza on Friday, including the Badrasheen, Saff, Waraq and Ayyat districts, but were swiftly dispersed by security forces.

The protesters began marching from the Omraneya and Talbneya mosques in Haram, chanting slogans against the military and police and holding up posters bearing the illegal black-and-yellow icon commemorating the Rabea al-Adaweya sit-in dispersal.

Brotherhood-affiliated protesters also allegedly tried to block the Agricultural Road in Badrasheen and Ayyat, but were stopped by the police, Ahram Gate said.

Since former President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster last July, Giza’s Haram district has been the site of frequent violent conflicts between Brotherhood supporters and the police. In March, demonstrators identified as Brotherhood members reportedly set a residential building on fire and threw Molotov cocktails at the police during a protest in the area.

On January 24, a bomb near Haram’s Radbouis cinema killed one person, after three other explosions in Cairo killed a total of five people and injured more than 100 — the majority of whom were security personnel — on the eve of the third anniversary of the January 25 revolution.