Cairo: Massive protests staged in Egyptian universities this week mainly by Islamist students are testing the government’s declared firmness to restore order to the nation’s campuses, according to experts.

Several public universities have been hit by violent protests since the new academic year started on Saturday, a reminder of bloody unrest that rocked Egypt’s academic institutions in the wake of the army’s ouster of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in mid-2013.

In the run-up to the new semester, the government of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi vowed zero-tolerance with university students and professors involved in “disrupting the educational process.”

Last month, the government empowered university presidents to expel students and professors engaged in “rioting” on the campus without investigations, a move that has infuriated both students and teaching staff.

An alliance led by Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood this week urged university students to continue their protests as part of what it dubbed “students’ uprising”.

“The National Alliance in Support of Legitimacy calls on students to go ahead with their revolutionary advance,” the coalition said in a statement.

The Brotherhood, already designated as a terrorist organisation by Egyptian authorities, has condemned Mursi’s removal as a military coup and repeatedly vowed to reinstate him.

“The Brotherhood knows well that students are the biggest source of trouble for state authorities,” said Amr Hashem, an analyst at the state-run Al Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies.

“Therefore, the group has increased its dependence on students inside universities at a time when the Brotherhood’s street influence has dwindled,” he added. “The Brotherhood has made repeated calls for inciting demonstrations in universities with the aim of exhausting state institutions. The Brotherhood offers financial support to university students and strives to put political pressure on Egyptian authorities through its allied groups abroad.”

On Monday, Interior Minister Mohammad Ebrahim visited security forces stationed outside the universities of Cairo and Al Azhar, which have borne the brunt of the violence in the first week of studies.

Ebrahim vowed firmness in tackling “rioters” and protecting “safety of peaceful students”.

‘Stoke tensions’

Under a cooperation pact between the Interior Ministry and Higher Education Ministry, universities’ presidents have the right to summon police to halt student protests deemed violent. On several occasions, security forces stormed campuses reportedly upon requests from universities’ administrators.

“The government thinks that the latest measures are necessary to maintain order in universities and prevent the repetition of the trouble that happened last year,” said Mustafa Al Sayyed, a political science professor at Cairo University. “Yet, these measures, including the expulsion of students and lecturers, will just stoke university tensions.”

Al Sayyed was one of several teaching staff who staged a protest on Monday at Cairo University against sacking academics without probes and other steps deemed violating academic independence.

The first week of the new semester saw clashes between students and security guards belonging to a private security company tasked with keeping order on the campuses. The fighting resulted in destroying metal detectors set up by the company at the entry gates of several universities.

Overpowered by students, civilian guards retreated in some universities, prompting police to move onto the campus and arrest an unspecified number of students suspected of rioting.

“Students have triumphed over oppressive measures,” the anti-military group “Students against the Coup” said.

“This is just a beginning for students’ revolution,” the group said in a statement.

The current academic year is Egypt’s first since Al Sissi, an ex-army army chief who led Mursi’s toppling, took office as president last June.