Tag: cairo u
200 Cairo U profs protest detentions
Hours after PM Ahmad Nazif visited the Electronics Department at Cairo University’s Faculty of Engineering to inaugurate an IT project, more than 200 academics held a protest yesterday at the faculty’s campus to demand the release of two colleagues detained by State Security, part of the recent crackdown on the Muslim Brothers.
Dr. Essam Hashish of the Faculty of Engineering (and ironically Nazif’s classmate in the undergraduate years) and Dr. Mahmoud Abu Zeid of the Faculty of Medicine are both members of the Islamist opposition group, and enjoy popularity among their colleagues and students.
Leftist academic Dr. Laila Soueif, who took part in yesterday’s protest, told me the academics who protested included a mix of secular leftists, Islamists and independents who turned out to show solidarity for their detained colleagues. The protest started at 1pm, she said, and lasted for an hour. It had been planned to coincide with Nazif’s visit to the faculty. The profs were under pressure from the Cairo U dean to cancel the protest in the previous three days. When it became clear the academics were insistent on the protest, the Dean resorted to secretly re-scheduling Nazif’s visit to the early morning.
Dr. Laila also added that the faculty gates came under the siege of the police troops, who barred journalists from access to campus.
The regime-owned Al-Ahram covered Nazif’s visit, but did not mention anything about the protest. But Al-Masry Al-Youm did.
Thousands demonstrate at Cairo University
Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood and leftist students are demonstrating at the Cairo University campus in Giza, protesting state security’s hassles against opposition candidates running for the student union elections.
The list of candidates certified to run in the elections should have been announced by 3pm. As of the time of writing, it hasn’t. The student activists smelt a fish, expecting the delay to be related to the security going through the names, putting their final touch, and eleminating names of political activists. Demonstrations broke out on campus. The university gate has been reportedly smashed. The students are currently on a sit in, waiting for the lists to be publicized.
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression has issued a statement denouncing security violations against students in Helwan, Ain Shams and Cairo universities.
UPDATE: The lists were announced sometime after 8pm. About 200 Muslim Brothers were banned by security, according to a MB student I spoke to over the phone. Demonstrations broke out, and the students tried to go out on the streets, only to be met by the Central Security Forces. The troops clashed with protesters violently at the gates of the university. The standoff ended around 9:30pm.
UPDATE: The AFTEE has issued another statement denouncing the security forces’ assaults on students.