CAIRO: Higher Education Minister Amr Salama and Cairo University President Hossam Kamel revoked Sunday a decision to expel nine students who protested for the dismissal of the dean of the mass communication faculty, who was asked to go on an open-ended vacation.
Salama also cancelled Monday a decision to subject three journalism professors to disciplinary action on accusations of inciting students to hold a sit-in on campus.
The three decisions ended a 75-day crisis inside the faculty of mass communication.
Earlier last week, Kamel had referred professor Mahmoud Khalil and two others, including the department head, to a disciplinary panel for “impeding the educational process and inciting students to hold a sit-in on campus” on March 21–24, the days that witnessed most of the action.
The students primarily held an open sit-in in the first week of March during which they called for either the dismissal or the resignation of the mass communication faculty dean Samy Abdel-Aziz for his association with the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP).
“It is true that I was an NDP member, but did I involve my political orientation with my academic one?” Abdel-Aziz asked in his own defense. “The January 25 Revolution did not erupt to remove people from their rightful posts,” he argued.
On Sunday, Kamel formed an appeals panel to contest an earlier decision to expel the nine students in a step towards canceling it and allowing them to attend final exams next week.
Even though it was announced Sunday that Kamel ordered Abdel-Aziz to take an open vacation until the latter insisted that he took the decision willingly.
Abdel-Aziz told DNE that he was still the faculty dean and that he decided to take some time off “until the sit-in is over and students go back to their classrooms or examination halls.”
“I delegated the vice-dean to run the faculty, being the only official who has this right. Neither the university president nor the higher education minister have the right to force me to go on leave,” Abdel-Aziz said.
Khalil argued that it didn’t matter who made the decision. “The most vital factor now is that the joint student-professors pressure succeeded in overthrowing Abdel-Aziz.”
Khalil previously denied that any faculty staff member provoked students to take any action.
“Both professors and students happened to share the same belief in the inevitability of overthrowing the dean like all officials who belonged to the old regime … and the remnants of the NDP,” Khalil said.
A few hours after their expulsion last Thursday, the Minister of Higher Education Amr Salama summoned the nine students to his office, promising them to resolve the situation after talking to Kamel.
Two days later, the students met Kamel and international law professor Dr. Ali El-Ghateet, who mediated at the request of Salama to help reach a compromise that satisfied all parties, before the students met the minister for the second time.
“During the two meetings with Kamel and Salama, we made our point … and we reiterated our main demand of removing Abdel-Aziz,” student Mohamed Fatouh told DNE.
“We also refused to apologize because we did nothing wrong. We only practiced our freedom of expression,” he added.
On March 23, the military police forcibly dispersed the student sit-in, after failing to convince the students to end it, leaving several of them hospitalized.
The army, however, later denied this in a press conference, saying that it intervened to end the sit-in peacefully, since the protesters prevented Abdel-Aziz and other professors from leaving the faculty or receiving any food or water.
"All these accusations are untrue. We did not prevent water or food from reaching the professor," Fatouh previously said, adding that the sit-in was peaceful and the faculty board members who held a meeting at that time moved in and out freely.
"The whole event was recorded on video which can prove our side of the story," Fatouh argued.
On the other hand, Abdel-Aziz claimed that the violations the students committed are also available on video.
Students and faculty were told by officials that a law for regulating university affairs is expected on July 31. It is speculated that the new law will stipulate that the deans and presidents of public universities be elected.
