Egyptian opposition leaders charged

In May, religious students pelted the police with stones

Egyptian prosecutors have filed nine charges against the leaders of the Islamic-oriented opposition Labour party following student riots in May.

The prosecutor's office said that the charges included having links with the banned Muslim Brotherhood and with "members of fundamentalist organisations working against national unity".

The party's newspaper, al Shaab, whose editor was among those charged, was accused of "offering a platform" to these groups "to incite to harm general order and to propagate" the groups' principles.

The charges carry jail sentences of up to 15 years, the prosecutors' office said.

Riots

Al Shaab newspaper was suspended on 20 May after printing an article alleged to have sparked the student riots earlier in the month over a book it described as blasphemous.

Riot police were called out to protect Al Azhar university

The Labour party has also been suspended since May, several months before legislative elections.

Although the party has only two seats in the 454-member parliament, its members often raise issues that the government dislikes in the paper, such as relations with Israel and corruption.

At least 40 students and six policemen were injured in the riots, among the worst in Cairo since the protests against the Gulf War in 1991.

Thousands of students took part.

Shouting religious slogans, they pelted police with stones from behind the fence of the university buildings, while the police shot back with teargas and rubber bullets.

The book that triggered the protest, by renowned Syrian writer Haidar Haidar, was first published in Beirut in 1983 but released in Egypt only last November.

The row worsened when Al-Azhar university, the most prestigious institution for mainstream Sunni Muslims, backed the students by declaring that the book offended all sacred beliefs.