CAIRO—A Cairo University student, Mohammed Abdel Khalek, was pulling up in a metro car to a station near the university, planning to buy a book on campus that would help him with his next exam. Instead, he was arrested and swiftly imprisoned.

He said was caught in the crossfire of clashes on that day last winter. When the doors on his metro car opened, he witnessed the chaotic aftermath of a demonstration. “I found a lot of people there running from police,” Abdel Khalek said. “I didn’t understand what was going on.”

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