Egyptian students clash with security forces

Protesters defy approval of anti-terror law that led to killing of at least seven people in protests that followed it.

Egyptian students opposed to the July 3 coup have clashed with the police at a university campus in Cairo, set two buildings on fire, state television reported. A student activist said on Saturday that a Muslim Brotherhood supporter was killed during the violence at the Al-Azhar University campus, a claim denied by security sources. State-run newspaper Al-Ahram said the clashes began when security forces fired tear gas to disperse pro-Brotherhood students who were preventing their colleagues from entering university buildings to take exams. Protesters threw rocks at the police and set tyres on fire to counter tear gas attacks. State TV broadcast footage of black smoke billowing from the faculty of commerce building, and reported that protesters also set the agriculture faculty building on fire. Al-Azhar, a centre of Sunni Islamic learning, has for months been the scene of protests against what the Brotherhood calls a "military coup" that deposed former president Mohamed Morsi after a year in office. Youssof Salheen, a spokesman of the pro-Brotherhood "Students Against the Coup" movement, told Al Jazeera that Khaled El-Haddad, a student at Al-Azhar's School of Commerce died in campus, but did not clarify the cause of death. It was not immediately possible to confirm the student's account, and a security source denied there had been any deaths. The violence followed a day of clashes across the country that left five people dead. Supporters of the Brotherhood have taken to the streets on Friday after the government designated the group a terrorist organisation - a move that increases the penalties for dissent against the military-led government installed after Morsi was overthrown. The widening crackdown Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood increased made Egypt suffer the worst internal strife of its modern history following Morsi's ousting. Morsi was the country's first elected president who took the power after the toppling of veteran leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011.