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Thursday, December 11, 2008

'Historic ruling' seen as banning police from Egyptian campuses

CAIRO — In what has been seen as a challenge to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, the opposition has launched a campaign to expel police from university campuses throughout Egypt.

Leading members of universities have pointed to a recent ruling by an Egyptian court for the removal of police from campuses. Police have been stationed on virtually every university campus since 1981.

"This is an historic ruling, which will help restore some freedom to the university campus," Mustafa Abdul Gelil, a professor of medicine at Cairo University and a leading Egyptian dissident, said. "This ruling will put an end to the frequent intervention of security men in academic affairs,"

In November 2008, Egypt's Administrative Court ordered the removal of the police presence at Cairo University, one of the largest campuses in the country, Middle East Newsline reported. Instead, the court ruled that the university establish a civilian security unit.

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The court, in a suit brought by professors at Cairo University, determined that the police presence on campus violated the Egyptian constitution as well as academic freedom. Egypt has 18 state-owned universities.

"No restrictions whatsoever may be placed on a university's exercise of its activities as this undermines the university's independence," the court said.

Abdul Gelil, head of the pro-democracy Kefaya opposition movement, said police have stopped or influenced student elections. He said police have also intervened to block appointments of professors and other academic staffers.

"The police on campus have been one of the key reasons for the decline in standards of Egyptian universities," Abdul Gelil said.

Opposition sources said they expected the Mubarak regime to ignore the Egyptian court ruling. They said most dissident cases have ended up being tried in security courts, which do not follow standard rules of evidence.

So far, the government has appealed the ruling. The Higher Education Ministry has argued that police were preventing violence and a takeover by Islamists, particularly those from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood



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