Although the protesters’ numbers were fewer than in past demonstrations, their slogans were more strident, and hundreds of police officers massed to meet them.

Pro-Islamic students at universities in Cairo, Alexandria and Mansoura protested the government’s detention earlier this week of up to 230 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which staged a rally against Mubarak in Cairo on Sunday.

Police say they have detained only 60 members of Egypt’s oldest and largest Islamic political group.

A small number of protesters from the Kifaya, or ’’Enough,’’ Movement were stopped from marching toward the Parliament. They then marched to the Journalists’ Syndicate, where the crowd grew to 400, and chanted slogans against Mubarak and carried the movement’s yellow and red flag.

’’The one who strikes the Egyptian people is not fit to rule Egypt!’’ one chant said.

’’The one who bars demonstrators would face the fate of Sadat!’’ was another chant, referring to the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat by Islamic extremists.

Mubarak succeeded Sadat and has been returned to office four times through presidential referendums, in which people voted ’’yes’’ or ’’no’’ for a single candidate approved by Parliament. But Mubarak opened the door for multiparty elections last month, and protests have multiplied.

The head of Cairo security, police Maj. Gen. Nabil el-Ezabi, warned Tuesday that police would strictly enforce the emergency laws forbidding unauthorized protests.

’’The regime is showing us its ugly face,’’ said protester Magdi Ahmed Hussein of the pro-Islamic Labor Party.