Category: Blog

I don’t have details yet, but it seems for the second day on the row, Ain Shams University’s campus in Abbassiya was the scene of clashes between the Free Student Union activists and those who belong to the government-appointed official Student Union, backed by criminal thugs who were allowed into campus with wooden sticks and sharp objects. The intimidation campaign is ongoing, while the university’s security personnel are absent from the scene, making sure the crackdown on the FSU to be portrayed as a students vs students affair.

UPDATE: A report by Aziz El-Kaissouni:

Plainclothes security disrupts Egypt student vote

CAIRO, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Plainclothes security men working with the police disrupted elections for unofficial student unions at Cairo’s Ain Shams university on Monday, Muslim Brotherhood and human rights sources said.
A Muslim Brotherhood student activist said the security men, working in large groups without uniforms or insignia, attacked voters and organizers with sticks, knives and bottles.
“They entered campus from the gates, with their sticks and everything, with the knowledge of (university) security,” said activist Muhammad Suleiman, adding that police stood by as students were assaulted.
The Muslim Brotherhood called for elections for “free” student unions throughout Egypt after almost all of their candidates were disqualified from the simultaneous official elections as part of a crackdown on opposition groups.
Suleiman said he and other students came under attack after one of the police officers in charge of campus security identified them by pointing them out in the crowd.
Muhammad Adel, a lawyer with the Egyptian Association for Supporting Democratic Development, said violence broke out in Ain Shams on Sunday as well and two students were seriously injured there. The association monitors elections.
Adel said the turnout at the universities where the unofficial elections are complete has been many times higher than for the official elections. A spokesman for the ministry of the interior declined to comment.
The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s strongest opposition group, despite being banned since 1954. Members elected as independents hold 88 seats in the 454-member parliament, which is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party.
The government controls state universities, which block Islamist candidates at student union elections every year.
The U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch said last month that Egypt had intensified its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood with a new round of arbitrary arrests.

UPDATE: Student Union elections have become a microcosm of national polls outside the campus, writes Karim El-Khashab for Al-Ahram Weekly.