An Egyptian court acquitted 155 people arrested during deadly clashes in the capital between Islamist protesters and police in October, state media reported Sunday.

The Cairo misdemeanor court on Saturday dismissed the charges of assaulting policemen and vandalism over the October 6 clashes that killed almost 50 people, state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

The lawyer for 21 Egyptian women and girls jailed over an Islamist protest told appeal courts Saturday there was no evidence of their guilt and urged judges to free them.

Wearing handcuffs but holding red roses, the 21 appeared in Alexandria courts in white prison garb in a case that has sparked an outcry.

An Egyptian prosecutor on Friday ordered the detention for two weeks of a Coptic Christian activist and journalist arrested on suspicion of inciting religious strife, state media reported.

Bishoy Armia, a convert to Christianity, made headlines in 2008 when he lobbied to have his religion changed from Islam on his national identification card.

Egyptian police arrested dozens of Islamist protesters on Friday when they dispersed rallies across the country, the interior ministry said.

Riot police fired tear gas at separate protests in Cairo and clashed with Islamists in other provinces, amid a campaign to stamp out unrest following president Mohammed Morsi's overthrow in July.

An Italian court on Friday convicted on terror charges an Egyptian cleric who was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan in 2003 and said he was tortured in captivity.

The court sentenced the ex-imam, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, to six years in prison for criminal association for international terror.

Egypt's Salafist Al-Nur party said Thursday it will rally supporters to vote for a new draft constitution in a referendum fiercely opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

"It is an amended constitution. Generally speaking, the final result is acceptable for us," said Nader Bakkar, spokesman for Al-Nur, which had a representative on the panel that drafted the constitution.

Two prominent Egyptian secular activists will stand trial on Sunday for allegedly taking part in a violent and unauthorized protest under a disputed new law, judicial sources said.

The pair, Ahmed Maher and Ahmed Douma, were arrested after Maher's supporters allegedly scuffled with policemen outside a Cairo court, as Maher handed himself in for questioning on suspicion he had organized an illegal protest.

A Cairo court on Wednesday freed on bail 23 Egyptian protesters from secular youth movements who were detained last week for holding an unauthorized demonstration, judicial sources said.

The protesters were detained for holding on November 26 what was the first illegal demonstration two days after interim president Adly Mansour passed a law banning unauthorized gatherings.

Turkey's popularity in the Middle East has dropped sharply over the past two years, an opinion poll showed Wednesday, reflecting Ankara's sometimes controversial foreign policy strategy.

The biggest decline was registered in Egypt and war-ravaged Syria, where Turkey is strongly opposed to those in power, according to the poll by an Istanbul-based think-tank.

The century-old home of Egypt's mummies and King Tutankhamun's treasures is trying to make the best out of the worst times of political turmoil. But the Egyptian Museum is taking a hammering on multiple levels, from riots on its doorstep to funding so meager it can't keep up paper clip supplies for its staff.

The museum, a treasure trove of pharaonic antiquities, has long been one of the centerpieces of tourism to Egypt. But the constant instability since the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak has dried up tourism to the country, slashing a key source of revenue. Moreover, political backbiting and attempts to stop corruption have had a knock-on effect of bringing a de facto ban on sending antiquities on tours to museums abroad, cutting off what was once a major source of funding for the state.