Cairo University President Hosam Kamel told Al-Masry Al-Youm he respects the recent judicial ruling to remove state security from university campuses. He emphasized the necessity of striking a balance between executing the court order and preserving university security.
The statement coincides with continued student demonstrations demanding the removal of the Interior Ministry affliated university guards.
"We established an internal security administration last year, and enforcement of the current ruling is underway, to provide a suitable alternative that does not interfere with securing the university and its resources," Kamel added.
Committees have been formed inside universities to find funding for the alternative plan to provide guards under university administration auspices, sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm. This plan requires a budget which the university will seek Ministry of Higher Eduction reimbursement.
Professor of administrative law Saleh Sadeq, member of a contingent of professors endorsing the court order, emphasized the historic nature of the ruling against, what he considers, the illegal presence of guards on campuses over a 29-year period. During the past three decades, Sadeq added, universities have suffered security intrusions.
Major General Mohamed Tawfiq Abu al-Naga, former deputy of security guards at Helwan University and a key figure in forming the first university security guard unit at Cairo University in 1980–a seminal move that paved the way for the 1981 resolution to establish university security–emphasized university guards were appointed for students and professors, and not against them.
He added that he obtained his orders in writing from university presidents and college deans and not from the Interior Ministry. Abu al-Naga pointed out that the director of security cannot enter the universities personally or with security forces except with permission from the university president.
At the University of Zagazig, Muslim Brotherhood students, the 6 April Movement and the National Association for Change organized a mass demonstration in which around 2500 students participated. Protestors demanded the expulsion of university guards as well as the immediate release of Al-Azhar students who were detained and have not yet been released.
Students chanted the slogan: "We want the university to be free."
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
