Tag: أحمد زكي بدر

Ain Shams University employees stage protests

Posted on By 3arabawy

Ain Shams University employees received the university president, Ahmad Zaki Badr, the son of the notorious former Interior Minister General Zaki Badr, by protests on the campus of the Faculty of Agriculture in Shobra. The employees were demanding job security, as they have been either on temporary contracts or without contracts at all for years (some have been working for 12 years without being instated, I was told).

The protests, according to my source, prevented the University President from leaving campus till the afternoon. One woman protester passed out and was transferred to the hospital.

UPDATE: More information in this Al-Masry Al-Youm report.

Campus activism updates

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily Star Egypt:

Two journalists have filed a series of complaints against both campus security at Ain Shams University and its president, Ahmad Zaki Badr, and say that guards obstructed them from reporting on student demonstrations last week, blocking one man’s entrance to the campus and violently beating another who made it inside.
Aboul Seoud Muhammad, a journalist with Al-Masry Al-Youm, says that security forces barred him from entering the campus when he went to cover the demonstrations protesting vote-rigging and state interference in student body elections.
“I gave the security officers at the gates my card saying that I am a journalist and a member of the syndicate, but they said that I couldn’t enter unless I had a special pass,” Muhammad told Daily News Egypt. “I knew this wasn’t right, so I called the President of the University, Ahmad Zaki Badr, and he said he would send someone from the public relations (PR) office down to escort me in to the campus.
“I waited for two hours and no one came,” he added. “I called the president’s office and the PR office again and again and no one ever came down.”
While he stood waiting outside the university, Muhammad says he saw Amr Sharaf, a photographer from Al Dostour, come stumbling out. He had been badly beaten.
“He was badly hurt and had wounds on his head,” says Muhammad. “He said he had been beaten by a police officer.
“We tried to take a picture of Amr Sharaf and his wounds but the security officers said we couldn’t because it would tarnish the reputation of the university.”

Moreover, Al-Masry Al-Youm reports on mass protests on several campuses yesterday in Ain Shams, Fayoum, Ganoub el-Wadi and others over variety of issues including the increase in education fees and text books prices, vote rigging in student elections.

You can also find more background reports on the violations that marred the past student union elections here and here.