Student protest calls on AUC to divest from corporations tied to Occupation

Students at the American University of Cairo protested on Monday to call on the administration to cut ties with corporations accused of aiding the Israeli occupation, one of the protesting students told Mada Masr, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern of facing retribution.

This is the third time in a few days that AUC students have held up a banner to call on the university to end its contracts with computer giant Hewlett Packard and French insurer AXA— two corporations targeted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for their involvement with the Occupation’s military and illegal settlements.

Monday saw a number of students hold a banner saying, “Where does our money go? AUC funds genocide, #BoycottAXA #BoycottHP” in the middle of Palestine week, a Palestinian cultural event held at the main campus in New Cairo by the student-run Al-Quds Club, the student said.

Later on the same day, dozens of protesting students tried to raise the banner again near the end of a seminar on economic inequality in Cairo, held as part of the AUC Tahrir 2024 CultureFest, but were faced with a strong presence of campus security, who confiscated the banner and pushed around some of the students, before some faculty members intervened to protect the protestors, according to the source.

Still, one of the students was able to take to the stage, and began reading a statement on behalf of students, alumni and faculty members, of which Mada Masr obtained a copy. The statement called on the university administration to:

• Immediately cut ties with AXA and HP.
• Commit to BDS and end ties with any companies targeted by the campaign.
• Commit to full financial transparency in the future and disclose how tuition fees are spent.
• Modify future contracts with on-campus vendors to block products tied to supporting the Occupation.

Campus security cut power off the seminar hall during the read out, to which the students responded with chants for Palestine and against the Occupation. They called out AUC President Ahmed Dallal for the attempt to silence the protest and for continued ties with HP and AXA.

Soon after, campus security offered an apology to the students and promised to return the banner, the student added.

The students first held up the banner inside campus on Thursday during an earlier event organized as part of Palestine Week, after which they toured the campus while lifting the banner up, the protesting student explained.

The action was repeated on Sunday, when one of them held up the banner on stage at the end of a seminar titled “Cairo's meeting with Khartoum and Ramallah in literary narratives,” presented by Palestinian author Ibrahim Nasrallah and Sudanese author Hammour Ziadeh at the AUC campus in Tahrir Square.

AUC has witnessed multiple student protests in solidarity with Palestine since the start of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip in October, including a demonstration in November that led to the university administration canceling the appearance of AXA representatives at the university’s job fair.