Egypt’s universities issue more security regulations ahead of new semester

University administrations are preemptively tightening their grip on student communities with an onslaught of new security measures as they prepare for the launch of the new academic year on October 11.

Cairo University President Gaber Nasser has instructed professors to steer clear of any political or partisan activities on campus, the privately owned ONA news agency reported on Thursday.

This comes after Nasser’s earlier decision to ban on-campus political activities, issued with the threat that any student activities show to be linked to a specific political party or group would be suspended.

Alexandria University has already suspended six student groups for their alleged religious and political affiliations. The administration accused the Benaa group of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Youth Who Love Charity group of links with the Salafi Dawah and the Life Makers group of being connected to an NGO with the same name founded by Islamist preacher Amr Khaled.

The university also suspended the Midan group based on accusations that it belonged to the liberal Dostour Party, The Word is Ours group for affiliations with the Strong Egypt Party and the Ultras group for belonging to the liberal Free Egyptians Party.

At Mansoura University, students wishing to renew their ID cards will be required to sign a document obliging them to abide by the university’s discipline regulations, and “respect the traditions and norms of the university.” The student’s guardian must also sign the document.

The university’s student affairs council shared the document on the official Facebook page for the Faculty of Pharmacy. According to the leaked document, any student who violates these rules will be penalized by the university’s disciplinary council.

Student Mostafa Magdy, who was the first to circulate the document on social media, told Mada Masr that he fears the forthcoming security measures.

“I do not know if I will sign this document or not. But if everyone else is signing it, there is no point that I don’t do the same,” he said.

“I really do not know what the ‘norms and traditions’ of the university are. This is a very wide statement that could be used to penalize any student,” Magdy added.

University presidents across the nation are bracing for the new academic year by threatening to suspend any students who offend or incite against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi or any other “symbols of the state.” Ain Shams and Beni Suef Universities have already instituted this rule, while Cairo University says it is still considering the measure.

The Beni Suef University Council declared that students who commit actions or circulate speech that is considered offensive to Sisi would face expulsion, and also banned all protests on university grounds.

The Ain Shams University Council said that students suspected of such acts would immediately be referred to investigation, the results of which would determine whether or not to suspend them.

University campuses have been the scene of bloody confrontations between police forces and various student groups — many of which are sympathetic to the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization — since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

In the last academic year, at least 13 students were killed, dozens injured and hundreds arrested in Egypt’s worst crackdown on academic freedoms in the last 70 years, according to the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression.