Egypt moves to tackle last bastion of Brotherhood dissent

Egypt has moved to close down one of the last bastions of Muslim Brotherhood dissent with sweeping new rules to curtail violent protest at Al Azhar University, among the world’s most venerable centres of Islamic learning.

Egypt has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and jailed thousands of its supporters since July 2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a senior member of the group.

As the noose tightened around the Brotherhood, Al Azhar emerged as a hotspot in its battle against Egypt’s new rulers.

The grand mufti, Egypt’s top religious authority, and the grand imam of Al Azhar, have long lent their prestige to those in power and issued religious edicts to back government policy.

But the Brotherhood enjoys strong support within the student body as well as among faculty members, many of whom oppose Sisi and his crackdown on Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement.