(AFP File Photo)
Revolutionary Front Student Media Coordinator Yasser Al-Kot denied in a press conference on Sunday any meeting between the front’s students and former Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) member General Al-Assar.
“The students who met with the former SCAF member betrayed their principles, and the front’s students do not meet with murderers,” said Al-Kot.
Al-Kot said the front is calling for a unified student movement, but denied any collaboration with Students Against the Coup (SAC) since “the Muslim Brotherhood and the SCAF are the two pillars of the counterrevolution”. He added that the front considers 30 June “one of the waves of the 25 January Revolution, but not a revolution on its own.”
The Revolutionary Front students made a statement condemning the security forces’ “violations” on university campuses and study halls against students “showing solidarity with their fellow students and demanding their legitimate rights, and the faculty members who support them.”
The front’s students asserted that “the students’ struggle will continue after the semester ends, until all detained students are released and all the demands are met.” They also called on student movements from Egyptian universities to unite and call for the release of all the detained students in time for exams.
AbdAllah Al-Gamal, the front’s coordinator at Cairo University’s Faculty of Engineering (FECU) said that “retribution for engineering student Mohamed Reda is a cause that affects all students and faculty members, who might face the same fate unless something is done.”
Al-Gamal added that the students involved in the FECU sit-in are considerng moving it to Cairo University Campus to pressure the president of Cairo University after members of the FECU administration announced their resignation last week.
Founding member of the front and Cairo University professor Dr Laila Soueif said that she attended the press conference to show solidarity with the students’ demands. These include: the release of all detained students in time for exams, the removal of any security forces near the university campuses, as well as a serious investigation into the violence at Egyptian universities and accountability for the responsible parties.”
Soueif stressed that security forces near university campuses “are threatening students rather than protecting them”, remarking that violence in universities “only occurred when security returned to the environs of campuses.”
Outside Cairo University a march heading to Nahda Square was organised by a group called “18” and was joined by several students from Al-Azhar University, along with a march that came out of Cairo University organised by Students Against the Coup.
Abdel Salam Mohammed, the coordinator of the movement’s Giza section, said the movement is independent and does not follow any political party. “Our slogan is; with righteousness no matter where it is,” he said, adding that the movement was founded on the 18July at the Rabaa-Al Adaweya sit-in under the primary demands of “bread, freedom and Islamic Sharia law.”
State-owned Al-Ahram reported that Egypt’s Student Unions (ESU) President Mohamed Badran said in a press conference that “Egyptian youth are suffering from a mix-up in the ideals of: justice, freedom and democracy and even the notion of a nation.”
The ESU president was taking part in the launching of a campaign called the Future of a Nation on Sunday in the Cairo Opera House.
Badran is not supported by the protesting students, who consider him “a tool of the regime”.
