CAIRO, 12 May 2006 — Violent clashes broke out yesterday between Egyptian riot police and demonstrators supporting two pro-reform judges who accused the judiciary of helping to rig last year’s parliamentary elections.

Several hundred protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kefaya movement as well as leftist organizations gathered in downtown Cairo and were surrounded by thousands of policemen.

Riot police wearing helmets were seen beating up protesters with truncheons.

“Dozens of members of the Muslim Brothers were arrested,” said spokesman Issam Al-Aryan, whose Islamist opposition movement was for the first time taking part in a demonstration in support for the judges.

Large sections of central Cairo were sealed off to traffic as the political opposition and reformists faced off with state security forces.

“Judges, protect us from dictatorship,” chanted the protesters, who split into at least three separate demonstrations in a bid to avoid being encircled by the police.

An AFP reporter saw one protester lying on the ground being kicked in the stomach by policemen and several others with bloodied faces being whisked away in police vans.

Several journalists were also manhandled by security, including a cameraman for the Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera who was badly beaten and had his equipment confiscated, witnesses told AFP.

A cameraman and sound engineer for state-owned Qatari television were arrested while covering the protests, their Cairo bureau said.

And another cameraman for Turkish television was roughed up and his equipment commandeered, witnesses said.

Abeer Al-Askari, a journalist for the independent Al-Destour newspaper, also said she was detained briefly at a Cairo police station, beaten, kicked and sexually harassed by policemen.

Security forces sealed off Cairo University’s campus after lecturers staged a protest in support of the judges, preventing them from joining other demonstrators downtown.

Mohammed Abdel Quddus, a prominent member of the journalists syndicate’s board, was arrested early yesterday at a cafe near the courthouse.

The two rebel judges, Mahmud Mekki and Hisham Al-Bastawissi, refused to enter the courtroom, where their case was supposed to be reviewed, claiming that their defense team was not allowed to come with them.

“I will no longer attend the hearings of the disciplinary board if the conditions for a fair trial are not met,” Bastawissi told AFP.

The hearing went ahead without the pair, who demanded that their lawyers be allowed in, that all security forces vacate the building and that all protesters detained for supporting them be released.

The trial was adjourned until next Thursday.

“What is happening today is an unprecedented scandal. The judges all refused to enter the courthouse, which is besieged by thousands of police forces who are interfering with the country’s judiciary,” Bastawissi added.

The two judges were summoned to a disciplinary hearing last month on charges of tarnishing the image of the judiciary by naming some of their pro-government colleagues in connection with election fraud.

Their summons triggered street protests in favor of the judges, who are in charge of supervising the electoral process and have become one of the symbols of the drive for reforms in Egypt.

Clashes between police and the protesters also erupted at the previous hearing on April 27 but the protesters were in fewer numbers.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 100 pro-reform activists have been detained over the past two weeks in connection with the movement to support the judges and the campaign to repeal Egypt’s state of emergency law, which has been in place since 1981.

Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party retained a firm grip on power during the November-December legislative elections despite a surge from the Muslim Brotherhood, who a secured a fifth of Parliament.

The judges’ syndicate is dominated by reformists and has been pushing for full independence from the Ministry of Justice.

The group took its confrontation with the regime a step further after the April 27 protests when it issued a statement openly calling for change in the higher spheres of government.