Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in South Africa's port city of Cape Town to protest against the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and its mass death sentences.

The protesters, including people from South Africa, Somalia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine, gathered outside the al-Sunny mosque in Bellville after Friday prayers to express their anger at the death sentences handed down to the ousted Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

Holding Egyptian and South African flags and carrying posters of Morsi and South Africa's former president, Nelson Mandela, the demonstrators marched through the Bellville central business district.

“Today's protest is part of our Ramadan month campaign against Sisi and his military government,” said Ahmed Meshtawy, a protest organizer.

He also noted that the organizers intend to hold daily protests and lectures during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in various areas of Cape Town.

Morsi’s death sentence over a prison break in 2011 was upheld by a court in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 16. The same also court sentenced Morsi to life in prison on charges related to involvement in espionage activities.

Egypt’s judiciary had earlier charged Morsi and 130 other defendants with escaping from the Wadi el-Natrun prison, located north of Cairo, in January 2011, during the uprising that led to the ouster of the country’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, was toppled in a July 2013 military coup led by Sisi, the then head of the armed forces.

MSM/AS/MHB