CAIRO, May 11: Violent clashes broke out on Thursday 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 protestors from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Kefaya movement and other leftist organisations gathered in downtown Cairo and were surrounded by thousands of policemen.

Riot police were seen beating up protestors 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 of 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 protestors, who split into at least three separate demonstrations in a bid to avoid being encircled by the police. An eyewitness saw one protestor 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 Al-Jazeera who was badly beaten and had his equipment briefly confiscated, witnesses said.—AFP