Students clash with police at an Egyptian university in Cairo

CAIRO – Egyptian security forces are firing tear gas at dozens of university students outside their Cairo campus in an attempt to prevent their protest from reaching the nearby defense ministry.

Dozens of students pelted the forces with rocks, some picking up tear gas canisters and lobbing them back. Students, some wearing face masks, used metal bars and garbage cans to build barricades. The students were demonstrating Monday outside Ain Shams University in eastern Cairo as part of a spreading protest movement in universities against the current authorities.

Students, most of them supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, have kept up the pressure in limited, but often violent, protests that have included the Islamic Al-Azhar University and the prestigious University of Cairo.