Student protests in Cairo continue after death of classmate

GUC students have been staging a sit-in protest for the past several days on campus and the university has cancelled all classes and student activities for two weeks as a police investigation takes place.

Thursday, on the third day of the strike, over 700 university students from the American University of Cairo and Misr International University joined their GUC colleagues at the university’s gates boldly shouting their demands which the include resignation of the university’s security and transport

If I don’t ask for my rights, no one will give them to me. - Hany al-Fouly, student

managers.

“Our main demand is the accountability of the GUC administrators for their negligence in this incident. More students will die if we continue at this rate” said Kareem Naguib, 22, the vice president of the GUC Student Union.

“The second demand is that there needs to be an emergency system inside the campus because so far they are non existent. When Yara was struck down she waited for 15 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene. This is definitely unacceptable” he added.

Al-Araby al-Jadeed can confirm that the GUC student union has reached out to the university’s legal counsel and that an investigation is under way into why it took so long for the ambulance to arrive even though the emergency unit is located 200m from the campus.

“The university has been willing to hear us out but that’s just talk. From our experience we need to put these safety regulations into practice in a clear and concrete manner. We want the student body to be represented when these plans are being drawn up in the long term” said Naguib.

Hany al-Fouly, 22, an organiser of the protests and a GUC student himself said that he had participated in previous protests pressuring the administration four years ago to take down photos of deposed president Hosni Mubarak which were plastered throughout the campus after the January 25 revolution.

He was also present three years ago on campus protests calling for the removal of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) after a GUC student, Karim Khouzam, was killed along with 73 others at the hands of armed thugs at Port Said stadium in a football match.

"If I don’t ask for my rights, no one will give them to me," he said. "It is always the same. They always say we will see, we will see, and then nothing happens."

Fouly said the students were in it for the long haul.

“They give you hope so we disband the protests and lose the leverage we have and in the end they shrug and move on. Now we are not going to let go of this leverage, we will keep up the pressure until they accept our demands”.

He also insisted that the student union had been lobbying for upgraded facilities to cope with the increased student intake over the years but their demands had fallen on deaf ears and the latest tragedy cemented the fact that the university was not serious about student safety.

"I don’t want the poor bus driver who was working eight rounds of pickups and drop-offs to be personally prosecuted. I want to see those responsible for transport, security and the overloading of students entering and leaving the campus to be held accountable for their negligence."

Al-Araby al-Jadeed has sought comment from the university about the student union’s claims of negligence, but to no avail.

With mid-term exams scheduled in the coming weeks, students have been meeting with faculty members to discuss working around the protests. For his part, Naguib, the vice president of the GUC student union, noted that students will keep on striking until all their demands are met.