Cairo: Clashes have erupted between security forces and students protests at a number of Egyptian universities against mass death sentences issued for hundreds of Islamists in a cursory trial.

At Cairo University, hundreds of students who attempted to take their protest outside the campus on Wednesday were met with volleys of tear gas from police. Khadiga Al Kholy, a student participating in the protest, said several students were injured.

In the Nile Delta city of Zagazig, police said students damaged the facade of an administrative building in the local university and clashed with rival students, prompting to security forces to enter the campus and arrest eight rioters.

A court in the city of Minya on Monday sentenced more than 520 Islamists to death in connection to an attack on a police station last year.