Two members of the 6 April Movement have filed an assault complaint against a security officer of Ain Shams University.
Abdel Meguid Maghrabi was distributing handouts about the constitution when a security officer from the faculty of law approached him.
“He said it was illegal to distribute handouts and when I tried to negotiate, he tore the papers, took my national ID and broke it in half” Maghrabi said.
The officer said he needed a permit to distribute such papers. “We had permission from the university’s students union” Maghrabi added.
According to Maghrabi, his friend Mohamed Eid came to see what was going on when the officer also took his college ID and assaulted him.
“He verbally insulted Eid and hit him in his arm and shoulder,” Maghrabi alleged.
They tried to complain to the dean but he was busy, so they met the vice dean. “He referred us to the director of security who tried to resolve the situation by apologising on behalf of the officer but this isn’t the first time they assault us, the same security practices happened before at the faculty of commerce,” said Maghrabi.
At the director’s office, the officer said Maghrabi and Eid were out of line and that they broke the ID themselves.
“Distributing any political handouts inside universities is forbidden by law,” said Islam Abdel Khalek, lawyer at the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights.
He added that university bylaws state that any form of political action is prohibited inside universities. “In Mubarak’s era political action on campus led straight to state security investigations… the Muslim Brotherhood were the ones to bring politics to universities after the revolution.”
Abdel Khalek also said that in most legal precedents where students were accused of distributing handouts, the court acquitted them, saying university students are a part of society and have the right to express their views.
The complaint was filed with Al-Wayli police department.
