AFTE strongly condemns the arbitrary decision by the German university in Cairo to expel five students. Two of the students were permanently expelled, Amr Abdel Wahab and Hassan Othman Ziko, while the other three, Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, Mostafa Ahmed Eissa and Abdel Hamid Abu Zeid Abdel Hamid were expelled for two weeks, because of activities organized on campus. Those activities included a memorial service for their colleague Karim Khozam, a martyr of Port Said incidents, as well as chanting against the military.
According to Amr Abdel Wahab, on the 18th of February the students organized a silent vigil in memory of their colleague Karim Khozam. The vigil then developed into a demonstration that demanded the replacement of Mubarak’s memorial with a memorial of their martyred colleague. They submitted their demand to Yehia El Razzaz, secretary to the university council.
On the 21st of February the students were summoned for an interrogation that was to take place on the 22nd of February. When they went they discovered it was a disciplinary committee chaired by Ibrahim El Demeiri, member of the board of trustees of the university and Yasser Hegazi, Dean of the Faculty of IT engineering and member of the legal affairs department. Students were accused of inciting chaos, breaking into university building and exposing students’ lives to danger.
During the procedures student Amr Mohamed Abdel Wahab asked Ibrahim el Demeiri to have access to the bylaws of the university and executive regulations of disciplinary procedures with students before starting the interrogation so that he can defend himself, upon which el Demeiri asked him to leave the room and did not proceed with the questioning.
On Thursday the 23rd of February four students and a tutor were sent a warning of permanent expulsion. From Thursday the 23rd until Tuesday the 28th of February students organized on-campus activities denouncing the expulsion of tutor Ahmed Wafik for joining the students in the demonstration protesting the killing of their colleague Karim Khozam.
Two days ago the students received the following email sent by the university administration to all students and lecturers:
“In reference to the decision of the disciplinary committee held on the 22nd of February concerning a final warning of permanent expulsion from the university in case of repeated violation of public order inside university or participation in any acts of unrest on campus and in view of your non commitment to the standards of decency and politeness in dealing with the university, in violation to public decency, straight conduct and university values, we hereby inform you of the decision of the university council meeting held on the 28th of February which decided the following:
– Permanent expulsion n cancellation of university registration starting today,
– The student is banned from entering campus and restricting any interactions to his custodians.
AFTE wonders about the nature of the violations committed by the students which calls for such a punishment, since they did not commit any violation of any kind on campus, since they merely organized a memorial ceremony for their colleague and demanded that the statute of the ousted president be replaced with that of their martyred colleague, which the students believe is a well deserved honor as opposed to the university administration which believes it is a violation for which the students deserve to be punished.
AFTE strongly condemns the attitude of the university administration towards the students, since it issued the decision of their expulsion despite the fact that one of them is a student in the final year of the faculty of engineering while another is in the third year. AFTE believes that the decision is excessively cruel in violation of the law which recognizes gradation of punishment provided a charge has been established. Punitive measures should not be abused by university administrations as a means of oppression of students and violation of their rights granted by the law and the constitution.
The decision to expel students of the German University in Cairo sheds many shadows over the respect of private universities of the right to education, whether those university are actually subject to the general regulations that govern all Egyptian universities, foremost the respect of the right to education, or whether they are no more than profit making projects subject only to the will of their money making owners.
AFTE condemns this organized oppression practiced by private universities against their students as well as condemns the lack of respect of the law in those enterprises and the violation of the right of students to have access to the punitive regulations. In that context AFTE filed two cases in front of the administrative state council demanding an annulment of the decision to expel the two students. The cases have been registered as case no. 26286/66 for Amr Abdel Wahab and 26287 for Hassan Othman.
