Amina Ismail

Bomb blasts Wednesday near Cairo University killed a brigadier general and wounded five other people, resurrecting fears that a violent campaign against government forces will grow as Egypt approaches presidential elections.

An Egyptian criminal court on Sunday released on bail a leading liberal activist charged with holding unauthorized protests in a ruling some here saw as an effort by authorities to cool political tensions ahead of an expected presidential election.

Mohamed Soltan, an American-Egyptian citizen, has been held in an Egyptian prison for almost seven months. He says he’s been tortured, stripped naked and beaten. He says he’s witnessed prisoners beaten to death, that he’s been subjected to forced surgery, and that much of his time has been spent in an overcrowded prison cell with no consistent running water. No formal charges have been brought against him.

Islamist opponents of Egypt’s military-led government are increasingly embracing militant tactics to push back against the months-long crackdown that has seen 23,000 people arrested in the past seven months.

Three Al Jazeera English journalists charged with running a terrorist cell out of a luxurious Cairo hotel appeared in court for the first time Thursday, offering during two recesses detailed descriptions of their 54 days in jail, saying that they’d been denied outside information and allowed only limited exercise and that the prison system has become a breeding ground for militants.

Egyptian authorities on Wednesday charged 20 journalists who work for the Al Jazeera satellite news channel, including five who hold foreign citizenship, with being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood and accused them of plotting to defame Egypt and of running a terrorist cell out of a luxurious Cairo hotel.

Former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appeared in a Cairo courtroom Tuesday to face charges that he escaped prison in 2011. But the man who’d been the first democratically elected president in the country’s history was confined in a soundproof glass booth, and authorities made major efforts to ensure that whatever he said during his brief appearance went largely unheard.

The Egyptian government crackdown on political dissidents, particularly supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, has extended to widespread and unprecedented abuses against a segment of the population once considered largely sacrosanct from arrest and political detention – women.

Egyptian officials on Tuesday sought to counter growing concerns that their crackdown on dissidents marks a return to the authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, accusing the Muslim Brotherhood as trying to cripple Egypt’s future and calling the brief tenure of President Mohammed Morsi the “worst year in Egypt’s history.”

Hundreds of high-profile court cases, including one involving former President Mohammed Morsi, were delayed Wednesday for logistical reasons that defense lawyers said were colored by political considerations and an effort to suppress defendants’ rights to due process.

Egypt’s Constituent Assembly on Sunday approved a new constitution that calls for more rights and freedoms even as the reality of an increasingly police-like state played out in the streets.

Egyptian security forces rounded up at least 28 activists Tuesday and dispersed protests with beatings, water cannons and teargas in the first enforcement a new law that limits public demonstrations.

Egypt on Sunday enacted tough new restrictions on public demonstrations that free-speech advocates said will suppress protests against the current military-imposed government.

As many as 10,000 suspected supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi are dispersed throughout Egypt’s prisons. Little has been said publicly about where they’re being held, under what conditions or what they’ve been told about the charges they might face.

Protesters returned to Egypt’s iconic Tahrir Square on Tuesday for the first time since the military overthrew Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in July, this time to mark the two-year anniversary of one of the deadliest clashes between security forces and demonstrators demanding civilian rule.