Pro-MB alliance calls for protests marking Abu Zaabal deaths anniversary

The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy called for mass rallies nationwide on Tuesday to commemorate the six-month anniversary of the killing of 37 Abu Zaabal prisoners.

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated detainees died of suffocation while being held in a police truck as Abu Zaabal prison personnel allegedly threw tear gas canisters inside the vehicle.

In a statement released Monday, the alliance questioned the integrity of the state's justice system, highlighting what it referred to as the politically motivated arrests of students, university professors and political dissidents.

The alliance also called the recent bombing of a Taba tourist bus that left four dead "a new crime by the coup which resulted from the state's neglect and its targeting of peaceful protesters.”

Also on Monday, the Nasr City Misdemeanor Court moved the date for issuing a final verdict against 27 Al-Azhar University students to February 27, the privately owned newspaper Al-Shorouk reported.

The students are accused of rioting, blocking the road in front of Al-Azhar University, thuggery, illegal gathering and belonging to a banned terrorist organization.

In November, 12 Azhar students had each been sentenced to 17 years in prison on the same charges.

In Damietta, a Brotherhood member was arrested on Monday on allegations of burning down three police trucks, reported the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA). The suspect was sentenced to 15 days detention pending investigations.

On the same day, five new suspects were arrested in Minya on charges of storming and setting ablaze police stations across the southern governorate following the violent August 14 dispersal of the Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda Square protest camps that left hundreds dead.