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V. Government Repression

State-imposed limits on academic freedom pervade Egyptian universities. Academic life, in Egypt as in all countries, can be divided into four major areas: the classroom, center of teaching and learning; research, professors’ work outside of the classroom; student activities, including in sports, arts, service, and politics; and campus demonstrations, where students and professors gather to express their views on political questions or school policies. Using a variety of instruments, the Egyptian government interferes in each of these areas.

Instruments of Repression

The Egyptian government uses three main tools, in various combinations, to stifle academic freedom: a pervasive police presence on campus, the political appointment of key administrators, and a series of laws that regulate internal affairs produce a university system under strict control of the state. “University education in Egypt cannot produce proper intellectuals,” said Ahmad Taha, a poet and former professor. “It is nothing more than a government office.”97 Using these instruments of repression, the state dictates what material can be taught and studied, restricts what opinions can be expressed and how, and interferes with meetings of professors and students. In so doing, it undermines the autonomy universities need to protect academic freedom and violates basic human rights.

Police Presence

Different branches of the state police, under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, monitor most aspects of state university life. University guards are stationed at campus gates and have offices in each faculty. Plainclothes members of the state security forces roam campuses to stop spontaneous expression, such as speeches or posters. The police also hire or coerce students into spying on each other. Those belonging to the student club “Horus” are notorious for intimidating their fellow students; this club, or usra, which has branches at the major universities, works for President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and receives financial and moral support from the activities department in each faculty.98 Together these forces strive to silence activist students and deter other, less political students from joining them. They suppress specific expression while creating a general climate of fear.

University guards control access to the campus, keeping people both out and in and heavily scrutinizing politically active students in particular. They make it very difficult for visitors to enter the university, and students of various political leanings told Human Rights Watch of being detained or searched at the gates. Iman Kamil, a self-described socialist who graduated in 2000, said the `Ain Shams guards denied her entry several times even though she presented her university identity card.99 Nadir Muhammad, a

Muslim Brother and third-year student at Cairo University,100 said that guards routinely harass him when he enters campus. If they find he is carrying religious tapes or magazines, they confiscate the material and detain him for a couple hours.101 The university guards also sometimes block exits. To keep student and faculty demonstrations from spilling into more public areas, they close the gates and confine demonstrators to campus. The use of state security forces to monitor university behavior affects private as well as national universities. Guards are stationed at all gates at the American University in Cairo. They check identification cards to screen visitors and close the gates to contain demonstrations.

Members of the state security forces intimidate students with scare tactics. For example, they call students on their cell phones to advise them they are being watched. Alternatively, they call students’ parents to tell them they should stop their children from “causing trouble.” Family members then apply the pressure the state desires. “It works well, especially among girls. Parents are so frightened, they prevent them from going outside and they stop being involved,” said Kamil, whose parents received such a call when she was in school.102 As described in detail below, this is just one of the many means that security forces use to limit student expression on campus. AUC students said they suspect plainclothes police mingle with the crowd on their campus, too. “The security forces penetrate the university,” a theater professor said.103 Although it is difficult to prove, this suspicion is a sign of the fear academics feel.


A Cairo University student scales campus gates to hang a banner during a protest on February 22, 2003. 
State-appointed university guards initially closed the gates in an attempt to contain a leftist demonstration of professors and students. 
© 2003 Bonnie Docherty / Human Rights Watch  

While some faculty members decry the presence of security forces, others see it as a necessary safeguard. For the most part, police leave professors alone,104 but that does not prevent many from resenting government interference in university life. “One of our demands for the last twenty years was to get police off campus,” said Cairo University professor Sayyed el-Bahrawy.105 Other faculty members said security forces posed no academic freedom problems and helped keep campuses safe. “I’m happy the security forces are there. . . . I’m glad they don’t let in anybody [to campus]. Otherwise it would turn into a zoo because of the huge numbers of the faculties,” said Dalia El-Shayal, an English professor at Cairo University.106 Student protests make some professors ambivalent about the police presence because demonstrators occasionally burn faculty cars and destroy property. A professor from `Ain Shams said, “The security is intimidating, but what do you do when students get completely out of hand [during demonstrations]? I have mixed feelings.”107

Minister of Higher Education Moufid Shehab defended the police presence.108 He noted they take orders from the rector and deans, not from officials outside campus. These administrators, however, represent the state, not autonomous universities. The minister also said that the university guards are “at the university only for order, not to intervene.”109 Nonetheless, students and professors repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that the constant presence of security forces on campus and the ways in which they are used by university authorities inhibit freedom at the universities.

Political Appointments

The Egyptian government also controls national universities, the primary source of higher education in Egypt, through politically appointed rectors and deans. The state selects university rectors, or presidents, whose responsibilities include overseeing the “scientific, educational, administrative and financial affairs” of the institutions.110 In 1994, it reversed a twenty-two-year-old policy of letting individual faculties elect their deans and gave the appointment power to rectors.111 Minister of Higher Education Shehab said that the change was necessary because elections had involved dirty campaigns and quarrels between professors. While Egypt is not the only country with appointed deans, professors continue to decry the move.

Faculty members complain that the appointment process gives the state too much control of internal university matters. Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, a political scientist at Cairo University, said the deans allow the government to have a dangerous presence on campus.

It’s been bad since [the system changed]. All rectors are appointed by the government and are usually NDP [President Mubarak’s ruling party] members. Deans are appointed by the rector and therefore have the ambition of becoming rector. They would be unhappy with any action critical of the government. It’s an unhealthy atmosphere. We feel deans are the eyes of the government.They don’t restrict actions, but it creates a feeling of discomfort. The deans say things pleasing to the government. It reflects badly on an atmosphere of freethinking and debate.112

His colleague Amr Hamzawy described the appointment process as part of the government’s move toward increasingly “latent” control, which involves state “integration in the apparatus itself.”113 Speaking about the evolution of state repression, Hamzawy said, “There is a different notion of control. Between the sixties and eighties, there was direct control. It eased in the early nineties. Now there is latent control—by regulation, co-opting people, getting critical ability to be controlled by integration in the apparatus itself.” He views the appointment of deans, whose job includes “controlling staff members,” as part of this systemic restriction of academic freedom.114

The appointed deans wield great power in the academy. They attend lectures, approve guest speakers and research trips, and assign responsibilities to professors.115 They can abuse these powers for political ends. For example, a dean at Cairo University punished Sayyed el-Bahrawy for his leftist political activities by keeping him away from students. The dean refused to let prospective students visit el-Bahrawy in his office in December 2002 and has denied him approval to supervise clubs. “The dean last year told me it is prohibited [for me] to go to demonstrations or speak with students about politics,” he said.116 A dean at Dar al-`Ulum, a faculty at Cairo University,117 punished Islamist professors by closing all but one of their offices in 2000. In the aftermath, “[t]here were fifty professors [sharing] one room. The dean believed it was a way to punish Islamists because he said they used their offices to spread Islam,” a professor said. Twelve months passed before the administration reopened the offices.118 The system leaves professors no recourse for redress. “If you have a criticism, it wouldn’t reach higher [than the dean] because everyone wants to please their boss. We don’t have a hand in running the university,” said an assistant lecturer in the Faculty of Arts.119

The switch from election to appointment of deans left the disenfranchised professors feeling powerless and cynical. Salah al-Sayyid al-Sirwi of Hilwan University said the system “shows how the state can always control the universities and what happens inside.”120 Aida Seif El Dawla, a psychiatry professor at `Ain Shams, described the policy as an “insult.” “They entrusted us with the education of a whole generation taking care of mental health, but not [with choosing] someone who does administrative work.”121 An Islamist professor from Dar al-`Ulum described the switch to appointment as the end of the “only free election allowed in Egypt at all.”122 He said a professor in his faculty who nominated herself and received only two votes during an election was later appointed dean.123

Although they have no say in the composition of university administration, students as well as professors are affected by the appointment system. “It’s very obvious when you compare how deans used to deal with students before and after the law. The conduct of deans is not very good,” said `Issam Hashish, a professor in Cairo’s Faculty of Engineering.124 Deans determine who can run for student union and must approve student clubs and public forms of expression. As will be discussed below, they have used this power to interfere with student activities that might challenge the government.

When Human Rights Watch asked Minister of Higher Education Shehab about these concerns, he said that he would consider a system that combines election with nomination. For example, the professors could elect three candidates, from whom the rector would choose one. Or the rector could present a slate of three candidates, on which the professors then vote. A proposed new university law offers an opportunity for a change in policy, but a return to elections is unlikely.125  “Democracy is not always an election. . . . I personally am against the idea of a pure election,” the minister said.126 However deans are selected, they must be free from political pressures and act according to academic rather than political or other criteria. In Egypt today, this is not the case.

Laws and Regulations

The state’s third instrument of academic repression is a series of national laws that impinge on campus affairs. The University Law of 1979, which governs the structure of the administration and student activities, exemplifies state interference with the internal workings of the universities via legal means.127 The law, 213 pages in its English translation, gives deans approval power over student union nominees and student clubs. `Imad Mubarak, recent graduate and lawyer, described this law and the presence of security forces as the two major obstacles to freedom of expression on campus.128 Other laws target freedom of expression in general and, in the process, limit academic freedom. Most notably, Law No. 20/1936 requires that all imported printed material, including course books, be reviewed by the censor’s office.129 The academy, like the rest of society, has also felt the effects of Emergency Law, under which Egypt has been governed almost continuously since 1967.130 In February 2003, the government renewed the law, which gives authorities extensive powers to suspend basic liberties, for another three years. It authorizes the arrest of suspects at will and their detention without trial for long periods; the referral of civilians to military or exceptional state security courts whose procedures fall far short of international standards for fair trial; the prohibition of strikes, demonstrations, and public meetings; and the censorship or closing of newspapers in the name of national security.131 This report will discuss the implementation of these laws, and others, in more detail below.

Academic Freedom Violations in the Classroom

In the classroom, the center of academic life, professors and students meet face to face to exchange knowledge and ideas and to discuss them from various perspectives. The Egyptian government interferes with this exchange through a variety of censorship mechanisms. State statutes restrict academic curriculum by legalizing government review of course and library books.  Professors at the national universities, who are state employees, censor the opinions of their students during class discussion. Without free access to information and ideas, the learning process becomes routinized, repetitive, and restrictive.

Censorship of Course and Library Books: AUC Case Study

The Egyptian state controls the classroom through censorship of course books. The national universities, which generally rely on a rigid curriculum of textbooks and classics, rarely challenge traditional strictures, but censorship has greatly affected the curriculum at the American University in Cairo. As a purely liberal arts institution, AUC tends to use more diverse and daring books. As an American university, it teaches most of its classes in English and therefore needs to import books from abroad. Both categories of books are vulnerable to the official censorship in Egypt.

Under authority of Law No. 20/1936, the Ministry of Information screens all imported books and periodicals. The statute does not apply exclusively to academic literature, but it facilitates state interference at the heart of the educational system. The two relevant articles state:

Article 9: In order to maintain the public order, it is permissible to prohibit printed matter that is produced abroad from entering into Egypt, and this prohibition can come as a special decision from the Committee of Ministers.

From that follows the need to prohibit the reprinting of this printed matter as well as its publication and distribution inside the country.

Article 10: The Committee of Ministers also has the right to ban the distribution and handling of printed matter of a sexual content as well as that which addresses religions in a way that could destabilize public peace.132

The law thus gives the state power to censor books in the three major red line areas: politics, religion, and sex.

A multistep censorship process screens all books imported by the AUC bookstore, including course books. The store stocks an average of 15,000 titles and 1,000 course books and has a sales volume of 9.4 million Egyptian pounds (LE), or U.S.$1.5 million, each year.133 When the bookstore receives a new shipment of books, it submits an invoice with a list of titles to the censor’s office. The office requests to review certain titles, and AUC delivers copies. Because it does not keep good records, the censor’s office often asks to review previously approved books, slowing the process and increasing the chances of an overturned decision. After review, the censor tells AUC whether a book is acceptable as is or prohibited. In some cases, a book can be altered to be made acceptable. For example, the bookstore has pasted stickers over illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad, such as one in a book from India, because Islam prohibits images of the prophet. Religious books, which must also be sent to al-Azhar, can take longer to clear. If there are no problems, the process takes a couple weeks.134

Books with titles relating to Egypt or to red line subjects face the greatest risk of censorship. In an order from February 4, 2003, for example, the censor requested to review thirty-eight books, including those with the following titles: Social Life in Egypt, Serpent of the Nile, The Question of Palestine, Shi`ite Islam, Ecstasy, and The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a work of fantasy.135 Bookstore manager Mike Zaug said the censor rarely asks for textbooks but does scrutinize works on politics or classics known for their frank sexuality, like Lolita and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.136 Zaug reported that one hundred titles were banned in the first three years after his 1998 arrival at AUC.137 As of February 2003, the most recently banned item was a Penguin Map of the World that showed the Egypt-Sudan border as contested. When Human Rights Watch asked the censor about the map, he replied, “We have a very clear border. . . . The only maps we go by have a straight line.”138

Because the censorship system relies on titles, it is often rather arbitrary. Literature professor Ferial Ghazoul said the censor banned three of four books in her Gender and Literature course in the mid-nineties. She suspects that he picked out Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Alice Walker’s In Love and Trouble, and Assia Djebar’s A Sister to Scheherazade because the titles mentioned the word “love” or referred to an Arab tradition of sexually explicit literature (Scheherazade is the heroine of the frequently bawdy The Arabian Nights). The fourth book, Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun, discussed both politics and sex but was never reviewed and thus not banned.139 The state also sometimes bans English versions of books available in Egypt in Arabic because the import law facilitates the process.140

An official in the censor’s office defended his department’s work as upholding Egyptian traditions. “Anything that is obscene or immoral should be censored. [So should] anything that doesn’t go by our traditions as Muslims and anything that concerns blasphemy of religion and national unity between Muslims and Copts,” he said. Asked for clarification, he repeatedly used examples of books with explicit discussions of sex but did not address more borderline works, like the novels and texts from AUC. “I don’t think it is against human rights not to allow things like pornography because we are an oriental society with religion and ethics and tradition.”141 The censor said he believed politics were less controversial because Egyptians can criticize their government. Asked about works discussing President Mubarak, he responded, “I don’t see anything about the president or attacking him. I don’t think anything issued worldwide attacks the president. Nobody ever attacked him.”142 The censor did acknowledge that times are changing with technology. “People are different. It’s not the sixties anymore. . . . We have an open society and [the world is a] ‘small village’ as they say,” he said.143 Because Egyptians can access almost any site on the Internet, censorship of publications may be in the future a less potent means of repression.144 Zaug said, “They need to do it [screen books] now, but with the way the world is going, they will have to stop.”145

The state censorship system has adversely affected the AUC library, the premier English-language library in Egypt. Like the campus bookstore, the library submits its packing slips to the censor’s office. The censor then reviews selected books and orders some to be banned. In a compromise worked out about three years ago, after a national scandal over teaching of the Moroccan autobiographical novel For Bread Alone,146 the library keeps banned books on reserve so that they do not circulate but can be used in the library. The computer database specifically states that books may not be photocopied. Currently seventy-eight of the library’s 400,000 volumes are on reserve. Examples include classic literature, such as Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; contemporary Arabic literature, such as Cites of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif; books on contemporary politics, such as Israeli-Egyptian Relations 1980-2000 by Ephraim Dowek and For the Future of Israel by Shimon Peres and Robert Little; and works on Islam in general or in contemporary society, such as Islam, A Concise Introduction by Neal Robinson and No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam by Geneive Abdo.147

Between February 2003 and May 2005, the library added eleven additional books to its reserve list. The additions included eight duplicate copies and three new titles—The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, The Body in Islamic Culture by Fuad I. Kuhri, and Invisible Life: A Novel by E. Lynn Harris. While new books were added, none was removed from the list during that time.148


State censorship places restrictions on the AUC library, shown here in a courtyard view. 
In a compromise reached with the Ministry of Information,
the library keeps officially banned books on non-circulating reserve. 
© 2003 Bonnie Docherty / Human Rights Watch

AUC Dean of Libraries Shahira el Sawy emphasized that she was content with the present system. “We have a very good relationship with the government. We have been able to obtain permission for books that are questionable for research. . . . They trust us and have confidence in us. We care about education and learning. We have no other motives,” el Sawy said.149 The official in the censor’s office said the state distinguishes between books for sale and those used for research. “We never even try to stop anything imported by the AUC library for research,” he said.150

The system is precarious, however, and the library is grateful for what appears to be at best a poor compromise. Like many professors, the librarian accommodates government restrictions, satisfied to obtain some books and unwilling to challenge the general censorship. “The system is working well. We are so pleased to have the books. . . . It’s a way to come to a good compromise,” said el Sawy.151 Although the arrangement allows for access to the volumes, the library should be free to determine which books belong on its shelves. The censorship of the library affects not only the AUC community but also Egyptian academia at large; given the poor quality of libraries at national universities, many academics rely on AUC’s collection for research.152

Censorship of the Arts

The state censorship system that has limited options for course reading lists and library holdings has restricted other parts of classroom and extracurricular life. In this case, the Ministry of Culture plays the lead role.153 It reviews all films imported into the country, including those used for teaching, and like the Ministry of Information, it uses a somewhat arbitrary system. An AUC theater professor said, for example, that the Ministry of Culture cut the last ten minutes of the school’s copy of Easy Rider but ignored the more provocative and sexually explicit Caligula.154 The Ministry of Culture also vets student plays. A censor reads the text of the play and attends a rehearsal. In the case of one play, the censor told the director to “cut all sex,” referring to a scene with a hug. To raise awareness of the problem, the AUC theater professor had the actors freeze while the stage manager passed by with a sign saying “cut by censor.”155 On another occasion, the state completely shut down a 2001 AUC production of Bay the Moon, a play by Mahmoud El Lozy. It called the play “anti-Egyptian” because it criticizes government policies and tells the story of an Egyptian man and an American woman.156

Class Discussion

At the national universities, restrictions on class discussion are the major challenge to academic freedom in the classroom. Some professors and students described feeling direct pressure from the administration and police. Seif El Dawla, a psychiatry professor at `Ain Shams, said it took her three years to persuade the administration to allow her to teach a graduate level unit on human rights for mental patients. Although she received the approval, she limited discussion of the topic to one lecture and did not put the material on the exam.157 In 2000, the state-appointed dean at Dar al-`Ulum prohibited a professor from teaching for a year because he had expressed Islamist views in the classroom. “The dean went to the classroom and told the students [their professor] wouldn’t be teaching because he did bad things.”158 The administration told another Islamist professor and his colleagues not to speak about certain topics or to “speak softer.”159 Professor Amr Hamzawy said his dean sometimes attends public lectures or conferences. “If he senses [government] opposition in the atmosphere, he will stand up to rearrange matters,” Hamzawy said.160

Hamzawy also said he has heard that a member of the security forces attends classes and reports on what happens. Students have a similar impression of being watched. Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, a 2002 graduate of Cairo University described the police presence in the classroom as “constant on the pretext of keeping order and controlling any form of student collective movement.” He continued, “Also the professors sometimes summon the police inside the classrooms in order to make sure that the proper conduct and order is kept in class as the classrooms are quite big and can contain more than 2000 students at a time.”161 Even if such incidents are rare, the perception of police presence is enough to discourage free and open classroom discussion.

Students face additional restrictions from their classroom professors who impose red lines on class discussion. Bassam Murtada, a first-year student at Cairo University’s Faculty of Law, described two controversial areas—religion and politics. The former comes up in his classes about Shari’a law. “It’s very hard to express anything about religion. You can’t criticize or contradict. The people who teach it are very strict religiously,” he said.162 Restrictions on politics apply to questions about both internal laws, particularly the Emergency Law, and international law. Murtada said, “We don’t talk about Israel as a state, its status in the system or legitimacy as a state. If you try to ask about the legal status of Israel, you are shut up by the professor.”163 Margo Abdel Aziz, an education specialist and long-time observer of Egyptian academia at the U.S. Embassy, echoed Murtada’s analysis about Israel and class discussion in general. “There is not freedom of opinion for students. Some professors would encourage, tolerate, respect [students’ points of view]. The majority expects falling into line,” she said.164 The intimidating atmosphere created by administrative and police oversight encourages professors to stifle productive intellectual exchange on important subjects in Egypt’s classrooms.

Long before university, Egyptian students are conditioned to regard censorship in the classroom as acceptable. Journalist Bahega Hussein, for example, described how the Ministry of Education censored the romantic subplots in plays taught in secondary school. “It creates a generation of boys and girls. . . who find everything can be treated as against their own tradition and country. When they reach the university they cannot appreciate freedom,” Hussein said.165 Samia Mehrez and other professors blame the rigid educational system for producing weak university students. “Students are heir to a national education system based on hierarchy and oppression and memorization. It kills their brains; thinking in itself is horror because if they do, they are defying the authority of the teacher,” Mehrez said.166 This early training makes it more difficult for professors to explain the dangers of censorship.

Conclusion and Recommendations

State interference in the classroom hurts the core of academic freedom by influencing what topics are taught and how they are discussed. Egypt’s censorship of course books violates the freedom of expression of professors and authors. While the ICCPR allows states to restrict this right on certain grounds, including for the protection of public order and public morals, such restrictions must be interpreted narrowly. According to a treatise on the covenant, ordre public encompasses “prevention of disorder and crime.”167 The treatise also states, “Typical examples of interference with freedom of expression to protect public morals include prohibitions of or restrictions on pornographic or blasphemous publications,” two types of books the censor mentioned.168 Egypt has laid out its restrictions in the law, as required by the ICCPR, but it has applied them far too broadly. A map indicating that the Egypt-Sudan border is contested is unlikely to cause public disorder. Routine scrutiny of all imported books touching on religious or sexual themes and continued censorship of many such titles cannot be justified as “necessary” to protect public morals. Finally, screening books before they are imported may be interpreted as a form of prior censorship, which is always prohibited under international law. The same legal argument applies to state censorship of the arts, including films for classes and school plays.

Government restrictions on class discussion violate freedom of expression and in some cases freedom of opinion. Students and professors should be able to exchange knowledge and ideas in the classroom without pressure from administrators or police. State-employed professors who stifle student discussion for arbitrary reasons further restrict freedom of expression. They also interfere with freedom of opinion. Students receive only partial information or no information at all on a range of subjects and are deprived of the opportunity to develop their own positions.

Human Rights Watch recommends that

  • The state repeal Law No. 20/1936, which allows censorship of imported publications.
  • Libraries be free to determine their holdings and to establish which books belong on reserve.
  • Censorship of plays and films on campuses cease.
  • Police be kept out of classrooms.
  • Deans not intrude upon lectures for the purpose of intimidation.

Arbitrary Interference with Academic Research

The Egyptian government maintains strict control over research in certain disciplines. Academic research is a place to advance existing knowledge and ideas. By formulating new questions and seeking answers to them, professors make discoveries and challenge assumptions in their specific fields. In Egypt, however, professors, particularly social science professors who rely on surveys and fieldwork to investigate contemporary issues, face enormous obstacles. “If you talk to anyone, research is a big problem,” said Reem Saad of AUC’s Social Research Center.169 The state restricts who can research what and severely punishes those who overstep their bounds. In the process, Egypt interferes with the central role of education in advancing society’s intellectual development and runs the risk of stagnation and isolation in a fast-paced and globally interconnected world.

Permit Process

The government regulates research by requiring permits for certain kinds of investigations. “It’s extremely hard to formally do research on many areas of politics and religion in this country,” an AUC sociologist said. “It’s a serious restriction.”170 In particular, the government has set itself up as a “gatekeeper” for statistical research.171 Researchers who want to conduct surveys or large numbers of interviews must apply to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) for a permit. The decree creating CAPMAS says that individuals cannot “publish any publications, results or statistical data or information from any source except from the reality of statistics of CAPMAS. The statistics that are not included in the programs of CAPMAS may not be published without an approval of CAPMAS.”172 The application, directed to the general director of CAPMAS’s General Department for Security, requires information on the survey subject; sample size, type, duration, and geographical distribution; and the researcher’s degrees.173 Professors seemed unclear, however, about the exact requirements. When asked how big a survey required permission, a professor said twenty interviews would not, but three hundred would.174

CAPMAS often denies or indefinitely delays permission to research controversial topics. “You wait and the answer might not come at all, or it may come after a couple months,” the AUC sociologist said.175 If a negative reply does come, CAPMAS does not provide justifications.176 Receiving a permit “depends on contacts and the sensitivity of topics. Certain topics can’t be researched,” researcher Saad said.177 Although some criticism of the government is allowed, permission to research contemporary politics is particularly difficult to obtain. For example, CAPMAS might rubberstamp a request to survey public opinions about seatbelts while rejecting a project about people’s satisfaction with the government.178 The permit system targets the social sciences, which do field research on contemporary issues, more than the humanities, which depend on libraries where censors have control. Scholars wishing to use the largely state-run historical archives also need permits, which are more available for projects on pre-twentieth-century topics.179

CAPMAS must approve not only the subject of the project, but also the specific questions asked of interviewees.180 It rejects some questions and asks others to be rewritten.181 If it does grant a permit, it requires researchers to provide updates of their findings, monitoring progress to make sure nothing controversial has surfaced.182 Some academics consider the permit system merely a bureaucratic obstacle while others call it a form of censorship. Either way such government regulations block access to information, slow production of scholarship, and discourage research into areas of social significance.

Researchers work around or try to avoid the state restrictions. AUC professor and researcher Saadeddin Ibrahim said that he usually applied for permits but started his research while he waited. If he got caught, he explained that he was doing a pilot survey of a small sample. “I was caught two or three times and said I was doing pre-testing. Many times it worked,” he said.183

Other people bypass the permit process altogether. “If you’re independent or a student, you risk it,” Saad said.184 While a master’s student, she applied for a permit but gave up and finally went without. As a part of a research center, however, she no longer has that freedom.185 One university sociologist said that he has never applied. “If you apply to do work . . . then they know what the applicant intends to do. I don’t want to give them information. I will be singled out, potentially face academic trouble. They might watch me more or tap my phone.” Instead he does work without a permit and tries to limit himself to small-scale projects. “It seems like more and more people don’t apply to do research,” the sociologist said.186 They either try working without a permit or change their topics.

For those who choose the former route, scholarship presents personal risks. Saadeddin Ibrahim was imprisoned and endured a multiyear court battle; although not officially charged with researching without a permit, he believes he was targeted for his failure to follow procedure. “The guerrilla technique caught up with me in the end,” Ibrahim said.187 He was arrested two or three weeks after the army realized he had not received a CAPMAS permit for a project on public trust in institutions, including the army. “Even though the army received an eighty percent rating, one of the top institutions, they didn’t approve of my doing it without a permit,” he said.188 Lower profile work can also attract unwanted police attention. A few years ago, two AUC students interviewed passersby in Tahrir Square, the main square in Cairo, for a school project. Security forces took them to the police station and interrogated them. They were later released unharmed.189

The risks involved with doing controversial research “illegally” can compromise the quality of scholarship. “There is good quality work in pockets, but it’s disconnected,” Saad said.190 Large surveys are difficult because they require people to deliver thousands of questionnaires.191 To avoid needing a permit or to escape detection, researchers instead tend to rely on smaller samples. Foreign researchers often bypass the process. “Somehow they manage. How properly is another question,” the sociologist said. “They do guerrilla-type research—ask and run.”192 While this approach allows academics to bring attention to the issues they care about, their conclusions are less reliable because they are based on less in-depth research.

Trial and Imprisonment: Saadeddin Ibrahim Case Study

When research topics cross too many red lines, the Egyptian government responds by shutting down research centers and imprisoning their scholars. The case of Saadeddin Ibrahim, which attracted international attention, exemplifies this situation.193 An AUC professor, Ibrahim was targeted for his work as director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, a research institute focusing on issues of democratization and the role of civil society. (Many Egyptian academics do their scholarship through independent or university-affiliated research centers.) While the case was unusual, it illustrates the extremes the state will go to stifle research and discourage work on controversial topics.

On the night of June 30, 2000, State Security Intelligence officials raided Ibrahim’s home and the offices of the Ibn Khaldun Center. They detained the professor and two colleagues and interrogated them without lawyers for several hours. The next day Ibrahim and Nadia `Abd al-Nur were placed in preventive detention, which the state can renew every fifteen days under the Emergency Law. The state also shut down the Ibn Khaldun Center, which stayed closed for three years.194 Ibrahim was released on bail on August 10, and other Ibn Khaldun colleagues who had been detained were released the following week. Ibrahim, however, refused to yield to state pressure and announced that the center would pursue its plans to monitor elections. As a result, on September 24, the Supreme State Security Prosecution indicted Ibrahim and twenty-seven coworkers.

The state brought charges against Ibrahim on four counts related to his work at the research center. First, it alleged he planned to bribe officials of the national Broadcasting and Television Center to obtain more media coverage for his work, which would help him receive more funding. Second, it charged Ibrahim with receiving donations, in this case from the European Union, without prior permission from competent authorities. The military order that this charge was based on requires that an individual obtain permission before receiving certain kinds of foreign funding.195 Third, the prosecution claimed the professor deliberately disseminated false information abroad about the internal situation in Egypt and thereby undermined the stature of the state. In particular, the prosecution accused Ibrahim of saying that Egypt has religious discrimination and rigged elections. Finally, it charged him with using deceptive means to profit personally from European Union funds made available to the Ibn Khaldun Center. The court convicted Ibrahim on all but the first charge.

Ibrahim’s treatment before and during trial was fraught with irregularities and failed to meet international standards for a fair trial. He and his colleagues were detained for up to six weeks before being formally charged. Some of the defendants were arrested without warrants, and prosecution officials interrogated them without counsel present. During the trial, the defense counsel had inadequate time to prepare and inadequate access to documents. The presiding judge failed to consider many of the defense’s key arguments and announced the sentence after the tribunal had taken less than two hours to deliberate.

The trial not only halted Ibrahim’s research but also put him through a multiyear ordeal, which included significant prison time. The court sentenced Ibrahim and his colleagues on May 21, 2001. Ibrahim received seven years in prison and his colleagues sentences ranging from one year suspended to five years of imprisonment with labor. The Court of Cassation heard Ibrahim’s initial appeal in December 2001, and this hearing eventually led to a retrial. On July 29, 2002, the State Security court handed down a new seven-year sentence to Ibrahim; it ignored his pleas to suspend the proceedings while he traveled abroad to receive treatment for a degenerative neurological condition that had worsened during his incarceration. The court reduced sentences for a few of his colleagues but for the most part they remained unchanged.196 In December 2002, on a second appeal, the Court of Cassation overturned the verdict and released Ibrahim although he was still prohibited from traveling abroad.197 The high court finally acquitted Ibrahim and his associations in March 2003 after reviewing the case on its merits for the first time.198

While Ibrahim’s trials dealt with the prosecution’s four charges against him, observers and the defendant himself believe the state really arrested him to stop his research on controversial topics. According to a July 2000 letter from the Middle East Studies Association’s (MESA’s) Committee on Academic Freedom, “The charges on which Dr. Ibrahim and his colleagues are being investigated appear to have been brought in order to prevent them from exercising their basic right to freedom of expression and freedom of association.”199 Ibrahim was charged the day after he announced plans to monitor elections. He was also researching industries that wanted to enter the American market with regard to social issues, like gender equality, child labor, and environmental protection. “In the end, they got me on research testing,” Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch.200 Irfan Siddiq, press officer at the U.K. Embassy, listed three red lines in Egypt, including political democratization and reform, personal criticism of the regime, and inter-religious conflict. “Saadeddin Ibrahim did all three. He monitored elections, and [discussed] the president’s son and serial succession. The center did research on Coptic discrimination.” 201 While the targeting of Ibrahim seemed to surprise few Egyptian observers, including the defendant, the case shows the extremes the state will go to to shut down research. Although Ibrahim knew the danger he faced by crossing red lines, those lines constitute unacceptable restrictions on academic freedom.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The Egyptian government violates academics’ freedom of expression by restricting scholarly research. It particularly infringes on the freedom to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas.” The state may legitimately limit research on certain topics under Article 19(3). For example, national security may justify keeping some documents classified. Human Rights Watch found, however, that CAPMAS seems to have a much broader sweep than necessary and, in some cases, indefinitely delays rather than formally rejects topics, thus failing to provide restrictions by law. By interfering with research subjects and methods, the system has contributed to the stagnant nature of contemporary scholarship.

The state has committed other abuses in its efforts to punish especially controversial academic inquiries. In the Ibrahim case, for example, it used arbitrary arrest and unfair trials to squelch research it considered objectionable. Such tactics not only violate academic freedom but also represent unacceptable abuses of human rights.

Human Rights Watch recommends:

  • An end to the CAPMAS permit requirements.
  • An end to the misuse of other laws, such as foreign funding laws, to stifle academics who research controversial topics.

Controls on Student Activities

Students in Egypt face considerable limitations on their activities outside of the classroom. Extracurricular activities provide students an opportunity to apply the knowledge and ideasthey have acquired elsewhere in their education. They prepare students to be active and responsible citizens by learning to govern themselves and work together for a common end. In Egypt, however, government-appointed deans and state security forces have systematically shut down many forms of substantive expression in campus activities. The state has disempowered student unions and clubs and interfered with other traditional outlets for student opinion. Such repression not only stifles political activism but also deprives students of valuable forums for learning from each other and preparing for adulthood.

Student Groups and Demands

Most Egyptian university students avoid involvement in campus or national politics. A small minority, however, takes a more activist stance and generally falls into one of two broad categories: leftist or Islamist. The former include the Nasserists (Arab nationalists), socialists, and communists, who pursue a secular agenda. Islamists, by far the larger group currently, seek to make Egypt an Islamic society based on a conservative interpretation of Shari’a law. Their ranks include the moderate Muslim Brothers and more violent fringes, such as al-Gama`a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) and al-Gihad (Holy War, known abroad as Egyptian Islamic Jihad).

Although they differ on politics and tactics, the leftist and Islamist students share many concerns and face similar restrictions from the state. Politically they oppose the government’s normalization of relations with Israel and more recently the U.S./U.K. presence in Iraq. Students on both sides also shared with Human Rights Watch similar complaints about life at the national universities, for example, the rigidity of the educational system, the price of textbooks, and living conditions at the university hostel. Government authorities, fearing the disruptive potential of the leftists’ public protests and the Islamists’ growing strength, have suppressed any student activities that might challenge the status quo.

Student Unions

Egyptian authorities take extreme measures to repress student unions. Students in each faculty elect a union of about eleven members, and members of a university-wide union are chosen from these bodies. Delegates from each university union represent their institution at the national Egyptian Student Union. The unions organize cultural, athletic, and social events and serve as liaisons between the students and the university faculty and staff.202 In the latter role, student unions should provide a valuable means for students to voice their concerns, but state security forces and state-appointed administrators have deprived them of any influence.

The law governing state universities describes a student union that facilitates expression. The first aim of the body is: “Developing the spiritual and moral values, and national consciousness among the students, training them in command traits, and providing the chance for them to express their views.”203 The reality, however, is quite different. The University Law of 1979, which replaced a more liberal statute from 1976, stripped the student unions of power. Among other stipulations, the 1979 law includes a clause requiring nominees to “enjoy good and straight conduct and good reputation.”204 The state-appointed administration has used this vague requirement to screen out both leftist and Islamist applicants. Through this and other provisions, the government has turned student unions into an arm of the state.

The state uses several means to neutralize the political power of student unions. In a number of cases, university officials and security forces have directly intimidated students in an attempt to prevent them from nominating themselves. In many others, administrators have used the law’s “good conduct” clause to weed out the most controversial applicants. Some students have challenged their rejection in administrative court and won, but long after the elections, at a time when the term of office had nearly ended. On some occasions, the administration has resorted to interfering with the voting process, thereby affecting election results. According to one student, security forces sometimes detain nominees in the university hostel until the election is over.205 As noted below, administrators have also held elections on school holidays or used the police to keep Islamists off campus so they could not vote. Such practices give the state control of election results. If a quorum of fifty percent does not cast ballots, the election has to be redone. A second election requires a quorum of twenty percent. If voter turnout is still too low, the administration appoints the winners, giving it carte blanche to select students who meet its political criteria.206 Several students recounted to Human Rights Watch the obstacles they faced when trying to run for student union, and their stories are told below.

The administration has pressured some students to withdraw their names from the ballot through verbal discouragement or intimidation. Socialist Yasir Dahmash first nominated himself for the student union elections at Cairo University’s Faculty of Political Science as a second-year student in fall 1999. The administration told him he should not run because he was not going to win. He withdrew his name one week before the election and decided to wait for a time when he could run on a slate with others. The next year, rural-born Dahmash joined candidates from the Egyptian countryside who felt they had been discriminated against by their urban classmates. “We wanted to improve conditions for those from outside Cairo,” Dahmash said.207 Their opponents, who had connections with the university administration and security forces, told them they had no chance of winning and threatened to tell the security forces they were politically active. “The intimidation really worked,” Dahmash said. “We preferred to withdraw instead of fighting a losing battle.”208 In his fourth and final year, 2001, Dahmash again nominated himself as part of the rural students’ slate, which included leftists and Islamists staying in the university hostel. At the administration’s urging, the two slates cancelled the election and split the union. In Dahmash’s view, “It was an injustice because if we had run in a fair election, our chances of victory were better.”209

The administration has used the University Law of 1979 to disqualify other students. Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, a 2002 graduate of Cairo University, nominated himself for the Faculty of Law’s union during the 1994-1995 school year. He had proven leadership abilities, having organized a student club and represented his faculty at chess competitions. The administration disqualified him, however, for “poor conduct.” It had suspended him previously for leftist political activity.210 Ibrahim’s friend `Imad Mubarak, a socialist who graduated from `Ain Shams in 2000, described the 1979 law as “illegal and a farce.” He said he believes students should boycott the union as an illegitimate organization.211

In other cases, the administration creates bureaucratic obstacles to running for student union. Mahmud, a Muslim Brother and 2002 graduate of Dar al-`Ulum, faced unanticipated hurdles when he nominated himself for election. Just a day before the election, the administration announced additional requirements, such as the provision of multiple photos and signed, photocopied, and stamped proof of student activities. While his opponents, as they later admitted, had been privately informed of the new requirements and had been able to prepare their papers in advance, the administration tried to deter Muslim Brothers with the extra work. “On the outside the general procedures were for all students, but papers [of non-Islamists] were ready in advance. Some of the students admitted this,” Mahmud said.212

Some students, especially Islamists, have challenged their disqualifications in court. Samer, a 2002 graduate of Cairo University and a Muslim Brother, tried to nominate himself his first year, but the administration denied him and about thirty other Islamists. Samer told Human Rights Watch that five or six of them challenged the decision in court and won. In new court-ordered elections, some of the initially denied students received eighty percent or more of the vote. Others lost, but in a fair election. Although Samer won a post as secretary of the social committee, he found he faced unfair obstacles to organizing events. “The restrictions make it impossible to perform activities,” he said.213 The next year, the administration again kept him and other Islamists off the ballot, and the students again appealed to the court. This time, however, the university filed a separate administrative procedure that delayed the judgment by three months. Although Samer ultimately prevailed in his case, it was too late to have a new election in April. In October 1999, with the support of a new dean, Samer was elected secretary with more than ninety percent of the vote.214 While the courts should be commended for giving students a fair hearing, the students should not have had to turn to the legal system to resolve an internal university matter.

Efforts to control the outcome of student union elections escalate as the process advances, and only the most determined activists remain engaged. Fourth-year student Muhammad Faruq said students from the pro-government club Horus throw stones at Islamist voters, and the dean in his faculty sometimes schedules elections for a school holiday when fewer people will be on campus.215

In extreme cases, activist students have been arrested and tortured. In October 2001, the administration told the security forces at Dar al-`Ulum to form a human wall to keep out Islamists. Mahmud, an Islamist student, complained and two days later he was arrested, blindfolded, and tortured for two days. Mahmud told Human Rights Watch that police denied him food and water and used a variety of torture techniques including hanging him from his wrists while beating him, inserting a steel rod up his anus, and electrocuting “sensitive areas.” The long-term psychological damage interfered with his studies, hurting his grades and leaving him without a job after graduation.216 Documents provided by Mahmud’s lawyer show that this incident was not his first run in with the state. The university had previously punished him for vandalizing notices, yelling at a professor in the classroom, and holding the student activities office hostage in order to obtain the names of candidates running for student union.217

The physical and psychological dangers of involvement do not end once a student becomes a member of the student union. In January 2000, three months after Samer was elected to his faculty’s union, he and about twenty others were arrested and spent four months in detention. The police falsely accused him of meeting with people whom he barely knew to plan illegal activities. During a thirty-six hour period, they blindfolded him, forbade moving or talking, and fed him only one meal. Although Samer was ultimately released, he continues to receive threatening calls from the security service and his case remains open.218

Some students express satisfaction with student unions. Rasha Daisty served as assistant head of the student union for Cairo University’s Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences in 2002-2003. She said the union transmits student views to the head of the faculty and helps organize seminars, conferences, and parties. “It feels like we have enough opportunity to express our opinion,” she said. “In the Political Science Department we try to be neutral, to study but not practice politics.”219 Daisty said she feels free to criticize the government or its economic policy. “Others fear [for] nothing. They won’t be arrested. It’s in their imagination,” she said.220 Human Rights Watch, however, found that students do have reason to fear harassment and arrest.

Minister of Higher Education Shehab defended both the current state of the unions and the restrictions of the 1979 law. He said Sadat amended the more liberal 1976 law because student representatives had abused their financial power. He argued that the change did not adversely affect the union because under today’s rules, “on paper, anyone has the right to be a candidate.”221 The only restrictions, according to the minister, are that students must have experience appropriate to the committees on which they serve. For example, the chairperson of the sports committee should be an athlete. The minister expressed regret that elections often become appointments because not enough students vote.222 He did not mention, however, university officials’ misuse of the good conduct clause or how the frequent lack of a quorum in effect allows state-appointed deans to pick students who do not threaten the status quo.

Student Clubs, or Usar

The main centers for student activity in Egypt are student clubs called usar (singular usra), or families. These clubs serve as social centers and forums for intellectual exchange. Like student unions, however, usar are restricted by the state. The law requires clubs to have approval from the university administration, which often bases its decisions on politics.

The administration frequently denies students permission to create groups and regulates the activities of those that are created. To form an usra, students need a professor supervisor, at least twenty members with student identification cards, and a memorandum about what activities they hope to do. The University Law states, “No organizations or formations shall be established on category, political, or creed basis in the Universities or its units.”223 Cairo University student Bassam Murtada said, “The administration looks with an eye of doubt on anything to do with politics. . . . You end up with usar that do trips.”224 Dahmash, a 2002 graduate of Cairo University and current master’s student, said some proposed usar are turned down for “weird reasons.” A fellow student submitted papers, with the support of a prominent professor, to examine the issue of unemployment and how students can find better work opportunities. Although the student insisted he was apolitical, the administration accused him of being a communist and said communists are not allowed to have usar.225 Islamist students also feel the limitations on usar. “If it [addresses] a serious topic, not even a political [one], such as bringing personalities to talk at a conference, it can lead to abolition of an usra,” said Muhammad Faruq, a fourth-year student at Cairo University.226 If a group does something political, its supervisor often abandons it and the administration dissolves it.

Administrative restrictions affect faculty members as well. Some professors fear involvement with usar. A Dar al-`Ulum professor said that they hesitate to supervise clubs and when they do, they “put their fingers in each activity to make themselves look pro-administration.”227 Others are kept out by the administration. Sayyed el-Bahrawy, a well-known leftist professor, used to serve as a club supervisor. In recent years, however, the university banned him from that role as a result of his leftist politics. “I am prevented from any relation with students except inside the classroom,” he said.228 As the only full professor of Arabic literature at Cairo University, he said, he should supervise all literary activities but is never invited. In addition to blocking valuable interaction between professor and student, this ruling has affected el-Bahrawy’s salary. Professors who supervise usar receive extra pay.229

Other Forms of Student Expression

The police and state-appointed administration also block exhibitions, posters, campus publications, and verbal appeals. Usar produce some of these media, but others are more individual and impromptu. In addition to the usual red lines, opposition to normalization with Israel and criticism of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians are among the most controversial subjects. The university sees such forms of student expression as threats to be stifled instead of important means of stimulating debate.

Security forces monitor student exhibitions, one of the most popular types of expression on campus. Minister of Higher Education Shehab said, “Students have a right to make exhibitions as long as they are not against morals or [do not] include impolite words about the president.”230 If the subject is controversial, however, representatives of the state step in. Security forces destroy the students’ exhibitions and sometimes even beat the creators, who stand nearby to answer questions. They often follow students who try to hide and then confiscate their work. “No matter how many students guard it, if they want to tear it, they will,” Murtada said.231 Repression of exhibitions extends to observers. Pro-government Horus students tell onlookers to move on, calling the exhibition designers troublemakers or infidels. Security forces take members of the crowd to the university guard’s office to intimidate others from gathering to look.232 While at an exhibition about Palestine, Yasir Dahmash said, he heard an apolitical friend receive a call on his mobile phone. The caller asked after him and his group of friends by name. “Beware of your actions,” the voice continued. “So far you are not classified [as a troublemaker]. I’m talking to you like a brother.” The group later traced the caller’s number to the state security forces station in Giza.233

To hang posters called “wallpapers,” another form of protest, students must pass the university guards and obtain the administration’s permission, which is not granted if there is controversial content. Students said the guards regularly confiscate posters they consider inappropriate. According to Mustafa, students at `Ain Shams hide posters in their bags and jump over the campus fence.234 Recent Cairo graduate Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim made a wallpaper about the Arab-Israeli conflict that included text and an image of a skeleton with burnt edges. The university guards told him he could not bring the poster on campus, even when he explained he was seeking permission to hang it. He then smuggled it on campus. When the administration denied approval, Ibrahim hung it anyway and stood next to it in defiance. The administration suspended him for about two weeks for what it described as “an exhibition in solidarity with the Lebanese people.”235 It cited incidents like this one in ruling him ineligible to run for student union.236

Distributing pamphlets or student newspapers also poses dangers. Iman Kamil and her socialist colleagues formed a magazine called The Step. They kept it running for four years, but at their own expense and at personal risk. “The security forces took and beat the students distributing it to their office and detained them for a number of hours,” Kamil said.237 After handing out flyers on campus in 1998, she, too, was detained at the university guard’s office for three to four hours. Other students surrounded the office and demanded her release, which was finally granted.238

Police respond to oral expression with even more intolerance. The most common means of verbal protest is for students to stand at the podium in their lecture halls before class starts. They may talk about a certain issue or announce an event, such as a demonstration. “It is very hard to do this. It is met with a severe kind of punishment. They are [physically] hit very hard,” Murtada said.239 Several students said they had witnessed police drag classmates away from the podium.240 Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, for example, used a microphone to address his peers before a lecture started. When police tried to arrest him, a fight broke out between his friends and the police and their supporters. His faculty punished him by prohibiting him from taking his exams that term.241

Even if students receive approval for some form of expression, the administration can withdraw it at a moment’s notice. Dahmash, the rural student who had run for student union, helped organize a three-day event about Palestine in April 2002 with the dean’s permission. The event went smoothly until Islamist students in his faculty wrote a public letter thanking the dean for his support. The dean was furious to be publicly associated with the religious group. Dahmash suggested the organizers publish a letter explaining they were not affiliated with Islamists, but the dean ordered the event shut down.242

AUC students are generally considered less political than those in the national system, but they, too, face restrictions on expression.243 One student explained that “everything has to be approved by an academic adviser and the office of student activities.”244 Posters, for example, require the stamp of the office of student activities. She argued that this violates the American model of liberal education that the institution is trying to follow.245 This university is a private institution so its restrictions are not directly attributable to state action. Nevertheless, state practices at the national universities encourage restrictions on free speech at AUC.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The Egyptian government, through its security forces and university administration, systematically denies academic freedom to its students. First it interferes with students’ freedom of association. Although the state can restrict associations to protect national security, public safety and order, public health and morals, and others’ rights, its interference with the usar cannot be justified on any of these grounds. The treatment of student unions also raises freedom of association concerns. The state has clearly violated students’ right to participate freely and the unions’ right to act on behalf of its members.246

The state has routinely stifled students’ academic freedom in other ways as well. Its suppression of student exhibitions, wallpapers, publications, and speeches that address serious matters rarely, if ever, fits one of the narrowly defined conditions under which limits on freedom of expression may be justified. Restrictions imposed on students also violate other internationally recognized human rights. Egypt has arbitrarily arrested students, illegally detained them without charge, and tortured them, all acts prohibited under international law treaties to which Egypt is a party.

Human Rights Watch recommends:

  • Police intimidation and physical abuse of students cease immediately.
  • The University Law of 1979 be amended to allow the formation of political and religious clubs and to remove the “good conduct” requirement for student union nominees.
  • The administration and security forces cease interference with student union elections.
  • The administration and security forces allow free student expression in the form of exhibitions, wallpapers, publications, and verbal appeals. Such speech should not be restricted except for the narrow exceptions allowed under international law.

Far-Reaching Limits on Campus Demonstrations

The Egyptian government keeps an equally tight rein on campus demonstrations, historically an important locus of political expression in society. These gatherings, where professors and students come together, can stimulate intellectual exchange on social and political topics of the day. They also provide a means to challenge existing knowledge and ideasand attract public attention to shared views. They are particularly important in Egypt because campuses are exempted from nationwide limits on public assemblies.247 While state laws do allow demonstrations at universities, authorities use several methods to restrict their impact.

First, university guards control access. The guards try to confine demonstrations to university grounds, which limits their effect since the public cannot see them. Second, during protests the security forces often use violence against participants or detain them arbitrarily. Finally, the state retaliates against student demonstrators after the fact. The following case studies illustrate these techniques of government control and document academic freedom abuses at high-profile demonstrations.

Violence on Campus: Alexandria University 2002

State security forces killed a student with live ammunition during a demonstration at Alexandria University on April 9, 2002. Using tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons, they partly blinded four others and wounded additional 118.248 The violence injured bystanders as well as participants and caused even the most activist students to reconsider and in some cases retreat from their activities.

Students had gathered that morning to protest a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The dean of the Faculty of Medicine told the crowd that the administration would allow a peaceful demonstration that did not damage property. He proposed that the students disband and form a small delegation to take a letter to Powell at the American Cultural Center. After half an hour, the dean disappeared. “It was obviously an attempt just to disband [the students],” a student witness said.249 The guards had left one gate open opposite the Faculty of Law, implying that they would allow demonstrators to leave campus. When the students started to go out the gate, however, they collided with police and the “usual chaos” ensued.250

The peaceful demonstration and police response quickly escalated to violence. Although the sequence of events is in dispute, press accounts report that students hurled stones at the police and those who escaped campus burned cars.251 Security forces reportedly attacked the students with electric sticks and wooden batons with iron spikes. Students grew more enraged when they saw their injured classmates carried back onto campus. Since the police could not stop the crowd, one group of officers formed a barrier in front of the gate while another mounted high buildings outside the university from which it lobbed tear gas onto campus grounds. The gas suffocated some protesters, and canisters hit others on the head. The police also used a blue water that contains an eye-stinging chemical. “The students were trapped. They tried to get outside [to escape the gas] but others waited outside to hit them,” a witness said.252 The gas was so thick that it reached professors’ offices two or three stories up. A university guard at the Faculty of Law was suffocating in his office when some students broke down his door to rescue him. Then police started firing rubber bullets into the crowd, which had swelled from five hundred demonstrators to eight thousand students trying to escape the tumult. By the end of the day, student Muhammad al-Saqa had been shot and killed by the police.253 According to the Ministry of the Interior, police killed him with shotgun fire after protestors threw stones at their ranks.254

Of the four partly blinded students, at least two were mere bystanders to the demonstration. They both said they were not politically active. One was sitting by the Faculty of Law with his girlfriend. “Students came running because of the tear bomb. We ran to the gate. There was black smoke so we couldn’t see they were firing these kinds of bullets.” One bullet struck him just next to his left eye.255 The other student had just returned from a vacation in Sharm al-Shaikh and did not know what was going on. When he saw tear gas hit his classmates, he helped carry a handicapped student to a mosque, “but they started bombing the mosque [with tear gas canisters].” A rubber bullet penetrated his eye. The nearest gate was locked so he had to walk around to the other side of the university and to hail a cab to take him to the hospital.256

The shooting was just the beginning of a long ordeal for four students who suffered eye damage. Although the severity of their injuries saved them from detention in prison, they were handcuffed to their hospital beds and denied access to visitors, including family members bringing them food. Security forces interrogated them about their political affiliations and state-owned television attacked them as troublemakers and traitors.257 The day after the event the government tried to place blame on the students by showing videos of security forces injured or collapsed from exhaustion. “It was not anymore students trying to express themselves. It was a battle where they show the victims,” said Bassam Murtada, a Cairo University student who watched the coverage.258

The injuries of the four students required further medical attention that was not available in Egypt. Having been denied visas by the United Kingdom, they traveled to Spain. One defected to Italy, but the other three had surgery and returned to Egypt. As of February 2003, the two bystanders whom Human Rights Watch interviewed were still blind in their injured eyes. They needed to return to Spain for a subsequent surgery but the Egyptian government had not granted them the necessary permission. The incident not only caused great physical and psychological injury but also interfered with their education. Both students were in their final year of study at the time of the demonstration. They missed exams in spring 2002 and expected to lose another semester in spring 2003.259

International Politics: Cairo University and AUC 2003

In spring 2003, at the time Human Rights Watch conducted the initial research for this report, campus demonstrations focused on the war in Iraq and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Both leftists and Islamists organized rallies. While the pending war led to an increase in protests, even Minister of Higher Education Shehab noted that activists no longer spoke about domestic issues.260 The government contained the campus demonstrations without using the extensive violence of Alexandria, in part because professors put themselves between the students and the police. Authorities applied force more aggressively, however, once the gatherings spilled into public spaces.

On February 22, 2003, leftist protestors gathered on the steps of Cairo University’s main building, the domed Great Festival Hall, to oppose war in Iraq and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.261 Professors had organized the demonstration to give students the opportunity to express themselves. After speeches by professors and students, the faculty members led the crowd on a march to the campus exit. Although the demonstration was at Cairo University, it attracted faculty and students from `Ain Shams, Alexandria, and AUC.  The university guards tried to contain the demonstration by closing the campus gates. Students quickly scaled the barriers with banners. When the guards opened the gates ten minutes later, possibly fearing negative press coverage, the campus demonstrators joined other anti-war leftists in a small square just outside the university. The protest lasted for more than four hours but a cordon of police officers with black riot gear, shields, helmets, and bamboo sticks carefully confined it to the plaza. A water cannon stood ready nearby. When students sought to push through the cordon after several hours, police started beating some of them. Knowing that security forces rarely attack professors, faculty members formed a human chain between the riot shields and students to protect the latter from the police.


A man holding a professors’ banner at a demonstration on February 22, 2003, confronts state security forces. 
Leftist professors organized the protest at Cairo University in which students also took part. 
© 2003 Bonnie Docherty / Human Rights Watch

By all accounts, the police reaction was mild when compared with previous treatment of protestors. “The security forces were given orders not to harass demonstrators. It was very obvious. . . . A soldier couldn’t understand why his officer was stopping him. [He seemed to be thinking] ‘You used to give us orders to hit,’” said a Cairo University lecturer who attended.262 Nevertheless, a few students suffered injuries. The police punched one named Wa’il in the eye, and `Ain Shams professor Aida Seif El Dawla took him to the hospital.263 Security forces detained two other students, a man and woman.264

An Islamist protest four days later addressed the same international issues in a more orderly form. This anti-war demonstration consisted of an organized march around the campus and did not seek to leave university grounds. Professors in suits led the four-hour march, followed by male students with megaphones and banners. More quiet female students brought up the rear. This protest was much larger than the leftist one, illustrating the size of the Islamist movement. It also put a religious spin on the same political issues. The leftists had been politically divided between Nasserists calling for a pan-Arab nation and socialists and communists calling for revolution. The religiously more united Islamists carried Qurans and signs that read “Jihad is the answer.”

While the largest anti-war rallies took place off campus, members of the university community were inevitably involved. On March 20, 2003, the day the U.S.-led war with Iraq started, a demonstration that some observers said had begun at AUC swelled into a protest of 10,000 people in Tahrir Square, the largest there since 1972.265 The protest continued the next day, at which point the state responded violently. Security forces arrested about eight hundred activists and injured hundreds more, many of whom were professors or students.266 One student, for example, was detained for more than twelve hours and was blindfolded and forced to stand for several hours. He heard police slap and electroshock others.267 On March 22, three female students were arrested while trying to enter Cairo University to attend another antiwar demonstration. Police kicked Nurhan Thabit, a pregnant Cairo University student, during her arrest and while she was blindfolded and handcuffed in custody.268

University Issues: `Ain Shams University 1999

International politics have dominated protests in recent years, but students have also staged demonstrations to challenge university policies on issues relating to campus life. Activist students have frequently rallied in support of peers suffering at the hands of the administration, such as handicapped students denied access to their school or education students denied job protection. While such demonstrations address internal university affairs rather than international or national concerns, police repress them with as much or more violence.


Islamist students march around the campus of Cairo University during a protest on February 26, 2003.  This demonstration, which stayed within university grounds, faced less opposition from the state police than the one organized by leftist academics a few days earlier.  © 2003 Bonnie Docherty / Human Rights Watch

In March 1999, students rallied at the Faculty of Education at `Ain Shams to challenge a new education policy. The government had recently issued a decree saying that it was no longer responsible for assigning graduates teaching positions in secondary schools, overturning an earlier law guaranteeing employment within two years. Education school

students feared unemployment. Socialist students at `Ain Shams organized a peaceful demonstration to support their classmates. They faced initial resistance from pro-government Horus students, who beat them, and Islamists who are ideologically opposed to their socialist peers. Then, according to participants, the security forces responded to student speeches by hitting them with belts and steel-toed boots. Iman Kamil, a 2000 graduate of the Faculty of Arts, described being hit by plainclothes security forces with belts, fists, and sticks with iron spikes. The beatings fractured bones in her friends’ legs and chest and gave one student a nosebleed. “The guy who was bleeding from his nose had a heart problem so he was scared he might be dying,” she said.269

Kamil and classmate `Imad Mubarak from the Faculty of Law were among a group of students arrested at the demonstration at 1 p.m. Mubarak said he was kept in a bus until 4 p.m. and then interrogated by the state security prosecutor until 3 or 4 a.m. Accused of distributing flyers that incited students and of disturbing the peace, he spent a total of twenty-two days in Tora prison.270 Kamil remembered that Yahya Salih of `Ain Shams’s Department for Combat against Communism, which is responsible for monitoring socialist students on campus, came to humiliate them. “We were forced to sit on the tile floor. Most of the officers in the department started swearing at us. ‘Are you trying to change things, to change the government? You’re just kids. You’re nothing.’”271 The five men and two women were separated and shared cells with ordinary criminals for two days of their incarceration. “It was a weird experience to see criminals. I thought those things existed only in movies. It was an eye-opening experience,” Kamil said.272 She was particularly afraid for her safety, she said, because officers took one of her cellmates, not a student, out at night. Upon her return, the cellmate said she had been raped and beaten. The police kept Kamil in jail for weeks and prevented her mother from visiting. She was finally released after about twenty-five days.273 These particular students stayed involved in campus politics, but many less committed ones would be deterred by such abusive treatment.

State repression of student protestors regularly accompanies campus demonstrations in Egypt. “Students have no right to speak about anything. They are non-existent,” Murtada said. “Not only about participation in political issues but also issues students suffer from inside, such as the price of books, number of students in the classroom, harassment suffered at hands of guards at gates.”274 Students and recent graduates described first-hand experiences with violence at other protests, including: at `Ain Shams, one in support of handicapped students’ rights in 1996-1997; and at Cairo University, an antiwar and anti-Jewish settlements demonstration in March 1997, a protest related to the Palestinian uprising (intifadah) in September 2001, and an April 2002 demonstration in which students broke through the university gates and marched to the nearby Israeli Embassy.275

Conclusion and Recommendations

The Egyptian government’s response to campus demonstrations has repeatedly violated the right to freedom of assembly. Article 21 of the ICCPR protects peaceful demonstrations. The CESCR also states that academics have the specific right “to express freely opinions about the institution or system in which they work,”276 which they did in the protest at `Ain Shams in 1999. The other protests discussed above addressed political issues but did not threaten national security. International law allows security forces to maintain public order, but they cannot respond to a peaceful demonstration with violence. Even if crowd control is necessary, the use of arbitrary detention and excessive force is illegitimate.

Human Rights Watch recommends:

  • Professors and students be allowed to protest peacefully on campus without state interference or violence.
  • Demonstrators not be detained under the Emergency Law for exercising their right to freedom of assembly. If demonstrators are detained in a legitimate effort to maintain public order, they should not be mistreated or kept without charges for extended periods of time and they should be given access to counsel and due process.
  • The state allow public demonstrations outside of campuses to give all of its citizens the freedom of assembly they are entitled to.

Government Victimization of Islamist Academics

The Egyptian government is notorious for using different political groups against one another. In the 1970s, President Sadat empowered the Islamists to counterbalance the leftist groups ascendant at the time. In recent years, as the former have grown in influence, the state has sought to repress Islamist academics. The human rights abuses described below affect to some degree all government opposition groups, but Islamists often suffer more than their fellow activists. Religiously oriented campus groups tend to have larger memberships so they pose a potentially greater political threat to the government. Given their size, the number of potential victims is also larger. The government detains Islamists for longer periods and uses harsher punishments.

As detailed at length in chapter six, the actions of some Islamist militants have contributed to the climate of fear on Egypt’s campuses and to the imperiled state of academic freedom in the country today. Such behavior merits strong condemnation and requires an effective response if Egyptian universities are to regain their dynamism and influence. The intolerant or violent actions of these Islamists, however, do not justify an across-the-board crackdown, let alone the targeting of the peaceful Islamist expression and dissent described below.

Harassment and Detention

Egypt subjects Islamists to regular harassment and detention. A majority of the estimated 16,000 political prisoners in Egypt are Islamists.277 While all Islamists, especially professionals, are potential targets, students bear the brunt of state repression.278 Most of the student union candidates who were jailed or tortured, for example, were Islamists. The state also arbitrarily arrests Islamist professors and in 2004 fired thousands of secondary school teachers suspected of anti-government sympathies.279

Fearing the rising political power of this religious movement, the state often rounds up professionals, including professors, before elections so that they cannot vote. “It’s a seasonal thing. When there is an election, hundreds [of Islamists] are arrested,” said `Abd al-Mun`im `Abd al-Maqsud, a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood.280 On November 6, 2001, for example, nine Muslim Brother professors from seven universities were arrested. Two were found innocent and released, but the rest received sentences ranging from three to five years in prison. Charges, at least for alleged Muslim Brothers, almost always include membership in an illegal organization and possession of publications that promote the group’s ideas. While the state detains these professors more for their political opinions than their academic activities, the arrests interfere with their teaching and spread fear on campus.

The threat of detention makes the daily lives of Islamists harder to endure. “It’s not the repression in demonstrations. I suffer most from the day-to-day bad things,” Cairo University student Nadir Muhammad said. “If I pray at the [campus] mosque, I feel I am watched. If we try to gather money for the poor, someone tries to overhear us. I feel under surveillance.”281 The knowledge of what has happened to other Muslim Brothers haunts him even off campus. “At home, when I hear someone banging on the door or ringing loudly, I feel unsafe. I could be taken away at any time. If not for my faith, I would have given up a long time ago.”282 Despite the intimidation Muhammad said he is more frustrated and angry than afraid. “What happens to colleagues is a direct insult on ourselves. We have to keep the fight going on. I shouldn’t feel frightened to express myself. They are scared of us, of our strength and our belief.”283 Although victimized, such Islamist students feel part of a larger movement that is willing to challenge the state.

Academic Side Effects

Unlawful detention not only violates the basic human rights of students and professors but also infringes on their academic freedom. According to an Islamist lawyer, the most significant academic freedom problem Islamists face is that the government prevents detained students from taking exams. Cairo University, for example, denied student union secretary Samer’s request to take his exams in prison and then, when he was released in time, refused to let him sit for the tests with his peers. As a result, he had to repeat his third year of university.284 If students receive permission from the university, the Ministry of Interior is supposed to allow the exams. “In eight years, I’ve never seen anyone take [an exam in prison],” the lawyer said.285 Some students challenge this decision in the state council (administrative court). The lawyer, who has tried several such cases, pushes for an expedited decision, but it usually takes a year for the council to rule and by that time the exam has passed, which means students being penalized in this manner have to repeat the course. While in most cases the court rules in favor of the student, the Ministry of Interior presents a serious obstacle to justice. “Even if the court says yes, the person implementing [the decision] is [from] the Ministry of Interior and just ignores it,” he said.286 One of Samer’s classmates, also a former member of the student union, said the state detained him from January to April 2000. This student’s jailers refused to enforce the court’s ruling that he should take exams. He had to repeat a year of school and could not nominate himself for student union again.287 On the rare occasion that the ministry succumbs to outside pressure, the university often refuses to administer the exam on the grounds that the student has missed too many classes.288

Arrests can haunt academics for years after they are released. Police confiscated the computer of a professor, who asked to remain anonymous, when they arrested him. The state never returned the machine, and as a result, he lost all of his research. “There are a lot of nasty things being done. One accepts them as commonplace for a third-world country, but they are unacceptable elsewhere,” he said.289 Speaking of ongoing harassment he has faced, he said, “It’s a fact of life we begin to accept. Compared to prison this is nothing.”290 The fear of severe repression has led Islamist academics to accept more mundane restrictions. The state also blacklists for academic appointment students who have been detained because of their ideology. In general the top four graduates of each faculty receive positions as teaching assistants. An Islamist student from `Ain Shams, who asked that his name and faculty be withheld, explained that three of the top four students in his class were accepted but he, the fourth to qualify, was denied. The security forces had reviewed his application and learned that he had been detained for three years as a teenager. He was never convicted of a crime. Since the paperwork is normally returned without incident, the university had told him to start working. He did so for three months without pay until his application was rejected. The student had planned to pursue a Ph.D. and has sued to get his position back.291 His lawyer said this case is not an isolated one.292

Conclusion and Recommendations

Government abuse of Islamist faculty and students violates their basic human rights. As explained earlier, unlawful detention is illegal under international law. The fear generated by the Egyptian security services deprives these professors and students the freedom to teach or study, and they often suffer academic punishments for political activity.

The state repression described above also represents unlawful discrimination because it targets a group based on its political and religious opinions. ICCPR Article 2 says the state must ensure rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”293 Egypt’s government has systematically violated the academic freedom of its professors and students of all political and religious persuasions. It has also, however, particularly targeted Islamists for abuse.

Human Rights Watch recommends:

  • The Egyptian government cease singling out Islamist students and professors for abuse, including unlawful detention, imprisonment, and academic punishments for political opinions.


[97] Human Rights Watch interview with Ahmad Taha, Cairo, February 15, 2003.

[98] Email from Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, to Human Rights Watch, June 17, 2004.

[99] Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[100] The class years given represent the status of the student at the time of his or her interview in 2003.

[101] Human Rights Watch interview with Nadir Muhammad, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[102] The police called her parents when she was in school, but her father was an activist himself. He ignored the threats and encouraged her to do what she believed in. Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[103] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC theater professor, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[104] Human Rights Watch interview with `Issam Hashish, professor, Department of Electronics and Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[105] Human Rights Watch interview with Sayyed el-Bahrawy, professor of modern Arabic literature, Department of Arabic Literature and Language, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[106] Human Rights Watch interview with Dalia El-Shayal, assistant professor, English Department, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 27, 2003.

[107] Human Rights Watch interview with `Ain Shams University professor, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[108] In July 2004, Minister of Higher Education Moufid Shehab was replaced by Amr Ezzat Salama, former president of Hilwan University. President Mubarak’s new prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, appointed Salama “to help Egypt become a modern knowledge-based society.” Remmy Nweke, “Software Expert to Head Egyptian Government,” All Africa, July 21, 2004.

[109] Human Rights Watch interview with Moufid Shehab, minister of higher education, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[110] Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994, The Middle East Library for Economic Services, trans., art. 17, p. 23.

[111] The new law is Law No. 142/1994.

[112] Human Rights Watch interview with Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, professor, Political Science Department, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Cairo University, and Political Science Department, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003. Al-Sayyid said he challenged the policy change and upset the administration. An administration official told him, “You are leading a revolution,” to which he responded, “If you are unhappy, take me to court.” The administration official declined, saying “No, I don’t want to make a hero out of you.” Ibid.

[113] Human Rights Watch interview with Amr Hamzawy, assistant professor, Political Science Department, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Cairo University, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[114] Ibid.

[115] See, e.g., Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994, art. 332, p. 209 (“The approval of the Dean . . . shall be obtained concerning the holding of seminars, lectures, conferences, or exhibitions.”).

[116] Human Rights Watch interview with Sayyed el-Bahrawy, professor of modern Arabic literature, Department of Arabic Literature and Language, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[117] Dar al-`Ulum literally means “House of Knowledge.” This faculty focuses on Islamic studies, and its departments include Arabic grammar and literature and Islamic law, philosophy, and history and civilization. “Cairo University: Faculty of Dar El-Ulum,” http://www.cu.edu.eg/Faculties/darelalum.asp (retrieved March 18, 2005).

[118] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist professor, Faculty of Dar al-`Ulum, Cairo University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[119] Human Rights Watch interview with assistant lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 17, 2003.

[120] Human Rights Watch interview with Salah al-Sayyid al-Sirwi, assistant professor, Arab Language Department, Faculty of Arts, Hilwan University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[121] Human Rights Watch interview with Aida Seif El Dawla, professor of neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, `Ain Shams University, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[122] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist professor, Faculty of Dar al-`Ulum, Cairo University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[123] Ibid.

[124] Human Rights Watch interview with `Issam Hashish, professor, Department of Electronics and Communications, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[125] This proposal will be discussed in chapter eight.

[126] Human Rights Watch interview with Moufid Shehab, minister of higher education, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[127] Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994 (including amendments from 1979).

[128] Human Rights Watch interview with `Imad Mubarak, Cairo, February 23, 2003.

[129] Law No. 20/1936.

[130] Emergency Law No. 162/1958.

[131] Human Rights Watch, “Egypt’s Emergency Without End: Rushed Renewal of Repressive Legislation,” Press Release, February 25, 2003, http://hrw.org/press/2003/egypt022503.htm (retrieved August 21, 2003).

[132] Law No. 20/1936.

[133] Human Rights Watch interview with Mike Zaug, bookstore manager, AUC, Cairo, March 2, 2003. The monetary figures in this report are based on the exchange rate on October 14, 2004.

[134] Ibid.

[135] Memorandum to AUC Bookstore, Subject: Censorship List No. 223, February 4, 2003.

[136] Human Rights Watch interview with Mike Zaug, bookstore manager, AUC, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[137] Mike Zaug, “The Challenges of Bookselling in Egypt,” c. 2001.

[138] Human Rights Watch interview with official, Authority of Foreign Publications and Newspapers, Ministry of Information, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[139] Human Rights Watch interview with Ferial Ghazoul, professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, AUC, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[140] For example, the state has banned the English translations of the Arabic novels Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif and Women of Sand and Myrrh by Hanan al-Shaykh. Human Rights Watch interview with Ferial Ghazoul, professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, AUC, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[141] Human Rights Watch interview with official, Authority of Foreign Publications and Newspapers, Ministry of Information, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[142] Ibid.

[143] Ibid.

[144] The Egyptian government, however, has abused the Internet to entrap homosexuals, leading to their arrest and interrogation. Human Rights Watch, In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt’s Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004), pp. 73-87.

[145] Human Rights Watch interview with Mike Zaug, bookstore manager, AUC, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[146] The details of this case will be discussed below.

[147] Course Reserves: Library Intellectual Freedom Files, http://lib.aucegypt.edu/search/r?SEARCH=Library (retrieved February 25, 2003).

[148] Course Reserves: Library Intellectual Freedom Files, http://lib.aucegypt.edu/search/r?SEARCH=Library (retrieved May 24, 2005). The library added duplicate copies or new editions of Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society by Fatim Mernissi, The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, The Egyptians by Barbara Watterson, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt by Gregory Starret, and Women in Islam by Weibke Walther. Ibid.

[149] Human Rights Watch interview with Shahira el Sawy, dean of libraries and learning technologies, AUC, February 25, 2003.

[150] Human Rights Watch interview with official, Authority of Foreign Publications and Newspapers, Ministry of Information, Cairo, March 3, 2003.

[151] Human Rights Watch interview with Shahira el Sawy, dean of libraries and learning technologies, AUC, February 25, 2003.

[152] Human Rights Watch interview with assistant lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 17, 2003.

[153] The course book censorship is part of a four-pronged mechanism of censorship. As just discussed, the Ministry of Information reviews books and periodicals that are imported into the country. The Ministry of Interior confiscates or shut downs what it does not like. The Ministry of Culture reviews theatrical performances and plays. And al-Azhar reviews any materials dealing with religion. The Ministry of Information has had the greatest impact on course books, but because it only censors books coming into the country, it has primarily impacted AUC, which regularly imports English books from abroad. Mike Zaug, “The Challenges of Bookselling in Egypt,” c. 2001.

[154] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC theater professor, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[155] Ibid.

[156] Pamela Nice, “Letter from Cairo: Creating (and Destroying) a Culture of Inquiry,” al-Jadid, Fall 2000, p. 3. Controversial plays, such as Bay the Moon and more recently the Vagina Monologues, can usually only be performed in front of private, invitation only audiences. Christopher Walker, “Underground Celebration,” The Cairo Times, February 26-March 3, 2004, http://www.cairotimes.com/content/archiv07/vagina0749.html (retrieved August 5, 2004).

[157] Human Rights Watch interview with Aida Seif El Dawla, professor of neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, `Ain Shams University, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[158] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist professor, Faculty of Dar al-`Ulum, Cairo University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[159] Ibid.

[160] Human Rights Watch interview with Amr Hamzawy, assistant professor, Political Science Department, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Cairo University, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[161] Email from Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, to Human Rights Watch, June 17, 2004.

[162] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[163] Ibid.

[164] Human Rights Watch interview with Margo Abdel Aziz, Senior EFL/Civil Education Programs Specialist, English Language Programs Office, U.S. Embassy, Cairo, February 19, 2003.

[165] Human Rights Watch interview with Bahega Hussain, journalist, al-Ahali, Cairo, February 27, 2003.

[166] Human Rights Watch interview with Samia Mehrez, associate professor, Department of Arabic Studies, AUC, February 16, 2003.

[167] Manfred Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, p. 357.

[168] Ibid., p. 358.

[169] Human Rights Watch interview with Reem Saad, research associate professor, Social Research Center, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[170] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[171] Human Rights Watch interview with Cynthia Nelson, professor of anthropology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology, and director, Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies, AUC, Cairo, February 20, 2003.

[172] The Presidential Decree on Establishing the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), No. 2915/1964, art. 10, http://www.capmas.gov.eg/ENG_V/generalinfo/PRESIDENTIAL%20DECREE.htm (retrieved August 6, 2004).

[173] CAPMAS survey application form, http://www.capmas.gov.eg/serv/eng_serv.pdf (retrieved August 6, 2004).

[174] Human Rights Watch interview with Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, professor, Political Science Department, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Cairo University, and Political Science Department, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[175] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[176] CAPMAS survey application form.

[177] Human Rights Watch interview with Reem Saad, research associate professor, Social Research Center, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[178] Human Rights Watch interview with Hisham Kassem, publisher, Cairo Times, Cairo, February 19, 2003.

[179] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[180] The survey application requires two copies of the researcher’s questionnaire. CAPMAS survey application form.

[181] Human Rights Watch interview with Reem Saad, research associate professor, Social Research Center, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[182] Human Rights Watch interview with Saadeddin Ibrahim, professor of sociology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology, AUC, Cairo, February 24, 2003 (“They demand that you keep them informed of your work and findings.”).

[183] Ibid.

[184] Human Rights Watch interview with Reem Saad, research associate professor, Social Research Center, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[185] Ibid.

[186] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[187] Human Rights Watch interview with Saadeddin Ibrahim, professor of sociology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology, AUC, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[188] Ibid.

[189] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[190] Human Rights Watch interview with Reem Saad, research associate professor, Social Research Center, AUC, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[191] Human Rights Watch interview with AUC sociologist, Cairo, February 18, 2003.

[192] Ibid.

[193] For more detailed information about this case, see Human Rights Watch, “The State of Egypt vs. Free Expression,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 14, no. 1 (E), January 2002. Unless otherwise noted, the information in this section comes from that report.

[194] Network for Education and Academic Rights, “Egypt’s Ibn Khaldun Center Reopens Three Years after Closure,” http://nearinternational.org/alerts/egypt132003070300000en.php (retrieved May 20, 2004).

[195] This law, Military Decree No. 4/1992, has been used to crack down on NGOs, such as the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights. Joint Statement by Seven Human Rights Organizations (including Human Rights Watch), “Egypt: Concerns about Ongoing Detention of Human Rights Defenders,” July 14, 2000.

[196] Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Ibn Khaldun Verdict Meant to Silence Criticism: Ibrahim Should Receive Urgent Medical Treatment Abroad,” Press Release, July 31, 2002.

[197] Human Rights Watch, “‘Politically Motivated’ Verdict Overturned in Egypt,” Press Release, December 3, 2002.

[198] Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: High Court Overturns Conviction of Rights Activists: Saadeddin Ibrahim and Ibn Khaldun Center Colleagues Vindicated in Ruling,” Press Release, March 18, 2003.

[199] Letter to President Hosni Mubarak, from Mark J. Lowder, acting executive director, Middle East Studies Association (MESA), July 11, 2000, http://w3fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/CAFMENAletters.htm#0711Ibrahim (retrieved July 30, 2004).

[200] Human Rights Watch interview with Saadeddin Ibrahim, professor of sociology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Egyptology, AUC, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[201] Human Rights Watch interview with Irfan Siddiq, head, Press and Public Affairs section, U.K. Embassy, Cairo, February 19, 2003.

[202] Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994, art. 319, p. 202.

[203] Ibid., art. 319(a), p. 202 (emphasis added).

[204] Ibid., art. 334, p. 211.

[205] Yasir Dahmash, for example, said he stayed with friends the night of his elections to avoid this problem. Human Rights Watch interview with Yasir Dahmash, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[206] Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994, arts. 336, 337, p. 212.

[207] Human Rights Watch interview with Yasir Dahmash, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[208] Ibid.

[209] Ibid.

[210] Human Rights Watch interview with Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, Cairo, February 20, 2003.

[211] Human Rights Watch interview with `Imad Mubarak, Cairo, February 23, 2003.

[212] Human Rights Watch interview with Mahmud, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[213] Human Rights Watch interview with Samer, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[214] Ibid.

[215] Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad Faruq, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[216] Human Rights Watch interview with Mahmud, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[217] Cairo University documents obtained from `Abd al-Mun`im `Abd al-Maqsud, Muslim Brother lawyer, by Human Rights Watch, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[218] Human Rights Watch interview with Samer, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[219] Human Rights Watch interview with Rasha Daisty, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[220] Ibid.

[221] Human Rights Watch interview with Moufid Shehab, minister of higher education, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[222] Ibid.

[223]Executive Statutes of Law No. 49/1972 on Universities Organization as Amended up to November 1994, art. 332, p. 208.

[224] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[225] Human Rights Watch interview with Yasir Dahmash, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[226] Human Rights Watch interview with Muhammad Faruq, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[227]Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist professor, Faculty of Dar al-`Ulum, Cairo University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[228]Human Rights Watch interview with Sayyed el-Bahrawy, professor of modern Arabic literature, Department of Arabic Literature and Language, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[229]Ibid.

[230] Human Rights Watch interview with Moufid Shehab, minister of higher education, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[231] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[232] Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[233] Human Rights Watch interview with Yasir Dahmash, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[234] Human Rights Watch interview with Mai Magdi Mustafa, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[235] Human Rights Watch interview with Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, Cairo, February 20, 2003.

[236] Ibid.

[237] Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[238] Ibid.

[239] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[240] Ibid.; Human Rights Watch interview with Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, Cairo, February 20, 2003.

[241] Email from Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, to Human Rights Watch, June 17, 2004.

[242] Human Rights Watch interview with Yasir Dahmash, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[243] One AUC student said of her classmates, “Students are largely apolitical. They don’t think they can make a difference. . . . There’s a sense of hopelessness.” Human Rights Watch interview with AUC graduate student, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[244] Ibid.

[245] Ibid.

[246] Manfred Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, p. 387. According to this authoritative treatise on the ICCPR, associations do not include “juridical persons [i.e., legal entities] under public law, since they are not founded as a result of declaration of will by individuals but rather by law or administrative act.” Ibid. Because student unions in Egypt are created by the University Law, they do not count as associations under this definition. They should be established under a different authority, however, because the current system violates university autonomy.

[247] The government relies on three laws to stop public protests: Law No. 10/1914, Law No. 14/1923, and Law No. 162/1958 (the Emergency Law).

[248] For these figures and more information on this protest, see Imam Raslan, “Special File: Students and Politics,” Almussawar, May 3, 2002, pp. 14-16.

[249] Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #2, Cairo, February 22, 2003.

[250] Ibid.

[251] “Egyptian Student Killed in Anti-US Protest,” Agence France-Presse, April 9, 2002 (quoting the interior ministry’s statement that police fired in response to student stone throwing); One Student Killed in Most Violent Anti-Israeli Protest in Egypt,” Associated Press Newswires, April 9, 2002 (saying that students responded to the live ammunition with stones).

[252] Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #2, Cairo, February 22, 2003.

[253] Ibid.; “One Student Killed in Most Violent Anti-Israel Protest in Egypt,” Associated Press Newswires, April 9, 2002.

[254] “Egyptian Student Killed in Anti-US Protest,” Agence France-Presse, April 9, 2002. See also “One Student Killed in Most Violent Anti-Israeli Protest in Egypt,” Associated Press Newswires, April 9, 2002.

[255] Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #2, Cairo, February 22, 2003.

[256] Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #1, Cairo, February 22, 2003.

[257] Ibid.; Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #2, Cairo, February 22, 2003. See also “Egyptian Protest over Student Killed in Anti-US Demo Turns Violent,” Agence France-Presse, April 10, 2002.

[258] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[259] Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #1, Cairo, February 22, 2003; Human Rights Watch interview with Alexandria University student #2, Cairo, February 22, 2003.

[260] Human Rights Watch interview with Moufid Shehab, minister of higher education, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[261] Descriptions of the February 22 and February 26 protests are based on firsthand observation by Human Rights Watch.

[262] Human Rights Watch interview with assistant professor, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Cairo, March 2, 2003.

[263] Human Rights Watch interview with Aida Seif El Dawla, professor of neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, `Ain Shams University, Cairo, February 26, 2003.

[264] Ibid.

[265] Amira Howeidy, “A Day at ‘Hyde Park,’” al-Ahram Weekly On-Line, March 27-April 2, 2003.

[266] For more information on these protests, see Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Security Forces Abuse of Anti-War Demonstrators,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 15, no. 10 (E), November 2003.

[267] Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Crackdown on Antiwar Protests: Use of Torture, Excessive Force by Cairo Police,” Press Release, March 24, 2003.

[268] Ibid.

[269] Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[270] Human Rights Watch interview with `Imad Mubarak, Cairo, February 23, 2003.

[271] Human Rights Watch interview with Iman Kamil, Cairo, February 24, 2003.

[272] Ibid.

[273] Ibid.

[274] Human Rights Watch interview with Bassam Murtada, Cairo, February 28, 2003.

[275] See, e.g., Human Rights Watch interview with Tamir Sulaiman Ibrahim, Cairo, February 20, 2003; Human Rights Watch interview with `Imad Mubarak, Cairo, February 23, 2003.

[276] CESCR, General Comment 13, para. 39.

[277] Email from Mohamed Zarea, director, Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners, to Human Rights Watch, August 19, 2004. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights also recently reported that there are at least 16,000 political prisoners. Christopher Walker, “Hunger Strike Reflects Wider Issue of Prisoners in Egypt,” The Daily Star (Beirut), June 8, 2004.

[278] Islamist and other students represent about forty percent of Egypt’s estimated 16,000 political prisoners. Email from Mohamed Zarea, director, Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners, to Human Rights Watch, August 19, 2004.

[279] Charles Levinson, “Extreme Education,” Cairo Times, March 18-24, 2004, p. 7. The Minister of Education Hussein Kamel Bahaeddin announced on March 9, 2004, that he “had ‘expelled thousands of extremist teachers from teaching.’” Ibid.

[280] Human Rights Watch interview with `Abd al-Mun`im `Abd al-Maqsud, Muslim Brother lawyer, Cairo, February 25, 2003.

[281] Human Rights Watch interview with Nadir Muhammad, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[282] Ibid.

[283] Ibid.

[284] Human Rights Watch interview with Samer, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[285] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist lawyer, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[286] Ibid.

[287] Human Rights Watch interview with Muslim Brother student, Cairo, March 5, 2003. At the main state security office in Cairo, this student, who asked not to be identified, endured four days of particularly severe torture during which he was allegedly electrocuted, beaten and forced to stand up for long periods. He was blindfolded throughout his interrogation, which tried to compel him to give information on colleagues. Ibid.

[288] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist lawyer, Cairo, March 1, 2003.

[289] Human Rights Watch interview with Islamist professor, Faculty of Dar al-`Ulum, Cairo University, Cairo, March 4, 2003.

[290] Ibid.

[291] Human Rights Watch interview with `Ain Shams University student, Cairo, February 19, 2003.

[292] Human Rights Watch interview with lawyer, office of Montasser El Zayat, Cairo, February 19, 2003.

[293] ICCPR, art. 2.


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