University guards to be trained by MOI to secure campuses

The Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) plans to initiate a “cooperation protocol” with the Ministry of Interior (MOI) to guarantee the "stability of the educational process in the upcoming semester," the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported on Thursday.

Under the protocol, civilian administrative university guards would be trained by the MOI to ensure the stability and security of campuses with minimal intervention from state security forces.

The council reportedly decided to launch the cooperation after agreeing in its Thursday meeting that police forces should be kept off campuses. They should only be allowed into universities if the campus was attacked by “outside assailants” at the request of the university’s presidents or their deputies, the council agreed.

The SCU would also permit the civilian guards to inspect the cars of university presidents, their deputies and faculty members in order to heighten security.

The next semester is scheduled to begin on February 22.

As the yet-to-be-announced presidential election nears, the SCU also moved to ban any on-campus events endorsing any candidates in presidential or parliamentary elections, declaring that universities would remain neutral.

University campuses across Egypt have experienced escalating violence as students supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood group have clashed with police forces over the past semester in the aftermath of former President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster.

At least eight students have been killed by police forces since the last semester began. Four of the victims were students at Al-Azhar University, which suffered the worst of this wave of violence due to the strong presence of the embattled Muslim Brotherhood student movement.

While students who do not identify with the Brotherhood group have slammed the police violence, they have also blamed the pro-Brotherhood students for provoking the conflict that necessitated police intervention.

A census by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) said that 510 students have been arrested since Morsi’s ouster, 211 of whom are from Al-Azhar University alone.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim addressed the students during a Cabinet meeting in early December, urging them not to be “dragged behind those who want to cause rifts in the country.”

Ibrahim said he would not dare to use weapons against the students, and that he would “cut off [his] hand before this happens,” privately owned daily newspaper Al-Shorouk reported Wednesday.

“I continue to be very patient with them, but the students have to realize that what is happening is a conspiracy to reinstate the Brotherhood back into the political scene,” he claimed.

Ibrahim blamed the students for triggering the violence, saying they attacked security forces.