Fayyoum Students Launch Campaign For Release of Detained Colleagues

As part of the campaign to release their detained colleagues, a group of Fayyoum students announced Tuesday, April 21, their aim of gathering 5,000 signatures for their petition condemning the flagrant violations of student rights and requesting the release of 15 of their colleagues who had been unjustly detained.

The petition would be sent to the University’s President, civil society organizations, National Council for Human Rights, Ministers concerned, Head of the Ministers Council, the Parliament and its head, international human rights organizations, and to all whom this issue may concern until all detained students are released and allowed to resume their normal academic life, and university guards and their bullies are expelled from the university campus.

This step was taken in response to prosecution’s extension of 14 of the kidnapped students’ detention period to 15 days in addition to the 15 they had already spent in prison during which they received the worst treatment.  The 15th student remains in custody for investigations after being arrested from his house last Thursday.

The students announced that the petition was not their last step and that they would continue to escalate their campaign as long as their colleagues remained behind bars.

Fayyoum University had witnessed flagrant assaults at the hands of bully-backed security apparatus against MB students last Wednesday on campus.  The assaults led to multiple injuries being inflicted on the students including cerebral concussion, and were followed by the arrest of ten students and their presentation before prosecution.