(Photo by Adham Youssef)
Cairo University accepted the return of 38 students suspended during the first semester of the current academic year, after the students had filed official complaints against their dismissal.
The students had been suspended on the grounds of participating in protests inside the university.
“Another four cases are being currently examined,” Adel Abdel Ghaffar, Cairo University’s spokesperson told Daily News Egypt Monday, confirming earlier press statements by the university’s President, Gaber Nassar, about bringing back a total of 42 students.
The students’ return was conditioned by official guarantees from their legal guardians to abstain from participating in any protests or related incidents on campus.
“Nassar met the parents in person, and they have signed a written commitment form,” Abdel Ghaffar said.
The university claimed they were ‘giving students a second chance’, by reconsidering their suspension status and possibilities of attending their exams. This would only take place upon official written guarantees by their legal guardians for their abstaining from participating in any protests or related events on campus.
For his part, Colonel Yasser Mana’a, Deputy Security Chief at Cairo University stated that for the past couple of weeks the situation has been stable on campus, claiming no student protests have been taking place.
Local NGO, the International Development Center (IDC), said through its tracing tool, Democracy Index (DI), that 26 protests erupted in Cairo University in November, in comparison to 21 in October.
Hany El-Hosseiny, a Faculty of Sciences Professor at Cairo University said that students were still organising protests, namely through the Students Against the Coup movement (SAC). He added that they have shown more “maturity” towards abstaining from violence this year, in comparison to last year’s bloody clashes between students and security forces.
El-Hosseiny, who had previously expressed concern over students’ violent escalations faced by the security crackdown, asserted the university appointed a committee to look into students who wished to object their suspension orders and approved.
“Many of the suspensions were arbitrary,” El-Hosseiny said, “and as a result some students wished to pursue their legal rights in court and did not attempt to return to the university.”
However, El-Hosseiny concluded that for the time being there seems to be no intransigence from the university regarding students, adding that last semester, detained Cairo university students took their exams in jail.
