Egyptian court tells state security to leave university campuses

Sat, 23 Oct 2010

Cairo - Egypt's Supreme Court ruled on Saturday that state security be replaced with a civilian security force in public universities, as thousands of students prepare to rally on campuses ahead of the country's parliamentary elections.

"The presence of Interior Ministry police forces within the university is an obstacle towards the independence guaranteed to the university by the constitution and the law," the court said.

The ruling came on a suit brought to court by the Egyptian Cabinet, the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Interior, which were seeking a state security presence on university campuses.

To Abdul-Jalil Mustafa, a professor and one of the founders of the March 9 movement that calls for the independence of universities, the ruling is nothing short of historic.

"The verdict is an important step towards defending the independence of universities and respecting academic freedom to purify the campus from these outsiders," Mustafa told the German Press Agency dpa.

Saturday's Supreme Court ruling, while final, simply upheld an earlier court ruling that universities be independent of state security forces.

Despite the earlier court's ruling, the Ministry of Interior's forces remained on under the guise of the country's nearly 30-year- long Emergency Laws, controlling protests on campuses and who enters and exits through university doors.

Therefore, it is not guaranteed that the Supreme Court's decision to replace state security with a civilian force will be upheld or how quickly it might be implemented.

The Supreme Court ruling comes as Egypt prepares for the November 28 elections. Public universities are often hot-beds of political activism, with thousands of students over 18 years old eligible to vote, for the first time in their lives, in the upcoming poll.

According to the banned, but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, 30 students who were supporting the group's efforts to win seats in parliament were arrested in the government's recent sweep against the group.

Moreover, the group claimed this month that some 218 Muslim Brotherhood students in three universities were banned from running in student union elections.

However, hundreds more of the group's supporters have been allowed to run in the student union elections.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/350082,security-leave-university-campuses.html.