Tag: profs

University Professors Club support strike action; Students demand release of their professors

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

University professors will launch strike action on March 23 if their demands for improved pay and conditions are not met.
In November the Teaching Staff of Egyptian Universities Club — a group which represents the interests of teaching staff in the absence of an official union — began a signature campaign expressing support for a committee empowered to negotiate with the government.
During its fifth annual meeting, held last Friday, the Club voted for strike action.

And in other news:

Over 1,000 students demonstrated at Cairo University Monday demanding the release of eight university professors who will hear the verdict of their military tribunals today.

200 Cairo U profs protest detentions

Posted on By 3arabawy

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.