- Human Rights
- January 15, 2007
- 4 minutes read
Al-Azhar University Students Appeal for Help
We, Al-Azhar University students, call on all civil society institutions, Human Rights Agencies, media, journalists, respectable writers, and professors in Al-Azhar University in particular and in the Egyptian universities in general, and all freemen in Egypt and all over the world:
We appeal to them for protecting us from the State Security Police service that storms everyday into the university dormitory and violates the sanctity of the great university of Al-Azhar, threatening us with detentions in public and in front of all students and professors.
There are many plain-clothes elements in all faculties of the university; these plain clothes elements seek specific students, cause panic for all students and professors and violate the sanctity of the great university of Al-Azhar .
With these actions, they send a clear message that this university is controlled and run by this state security body which is supposed to protect citizens.
Since that bleak day in which the Egyptian security services – specifically the State Security Police service- arrested 124 university students from Al-Azhar University and violated the sanctity of the university dormitory, last Dec. 14, 2006, and fabricated false charges against these students, and accused them of having weapons in front of the prosecution; since then, Al-Azhar University has been filled with fear and panic by some plain-clothes elements controlled by the state security service.
We should show the public opinion what is happening inside the university campus and dormitory:
-Huge numbers of the state security service stormed into the university dormitory in Nasr City on Sunday, Dec. 17, 206 , driving out all workers in the buildings and cordoned it with a big number of Central Security Forces.
-Shutting down all areas allocated for committing the prayer, and libraries in all residential buildings inside the university dormitories.
Allowing plain-clothes elements and failing students to live in these areas although they don’t deserve this.
Dismissing a Pharmacy Faculty fourth-grader from the university dormitory although he is paralyzed in one of his hands, under the pretext that he distributing congratulation leaflets in the buildings, although that day was off.
Denying other students of Al-Safa city access to their residence in the university dormitory or changing their residence without any administrative decisions, leading to displacing them and preventing them from taking their clothes or books which they left inside Al-Safa city.
-Plain-clothes elements are heavily deployed inside the faculties of the university and searching for specific students to arrest.
All these measures are taken during the first term exams and while there is no student activity.
We are showing all these facts to civil society institutions including their human rights and media bodies and all respectable people in this country and all over the world; we shoulder them with the responsibility of defending and protecting us from this tyranny, and threats of detentions.
We also appeal to the university administration, and every one concerned with the university affair to defend the sanctity of the university including all its institutions after they became an easy target under the control of the security services that do whatever they want at anytime.
Also, we urge all free media outlets to be inside the university to witness the violations committed against the university during such hard times.
The Muslim Brotherhood students in Al-Azhar University