AUCians Plan to Strike Against Police Brutality
By: Mariam Mohsen and Roqaya Zamzam
Denouncing police brutality against protestors which led to the death of a Cairo University student recently, the AUC Revolutionary Movement organized protests on campus last week, announcing a strike on Sunday Dec. 8.
Around 30 AUC students created the revolutionary movement Sunday in a meeting following an anti-police march on campus.
The call for the strike comes after the movement’s series of awareness events that have been taking place throughout the past week.
The strike was triggered by the death of Mohamed Reda, an engineering student who was killed on Nov. 28 at Cairo University (CU) when police dispersed a student demonstration against the protest law by force.
Ever since the application of the protest law, Cairo, Alexandria, Al Azhar, and Fayoum universities declared a general strike.
Tens of AUC students chanted anti-police slogans in the marches organized through a Facebook event named, “For justice we will stand.” Organizers of the event urged members of the AUC community to put their political differences aside and stand against repression and abuses of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior (MOI).
Student protestors demand the independence of universities, cancellation of the protest law, prohibition of military trials for civilians and reconsidering court cases against students arrested by authorities post June 30.
“We are students, not terrorists!” chanted the protesting students.
Throughout the march, which took place during assembly hour, the protestors also chanted “The MOI are thugs!” making stops in front of the School of Sciences and Engineering building (SSE), the Prince Jameel Abdel Latif building and the Bassili Auditorium.
Hasballah El Kafrawi, political science junior and one of the revolutionary movement’s founding members, said, “Anyone who is planning to participate in this march must put aside [any] personal political affiliations.”
During the march, students made several stops in front of the university’s main building voicing their demands and explaining the purpose of the march.
“We are doing this because two days ago, a student in [CU] died inside the campus. If we, students, accept the violations that happen to others, then we are accepting violence to happen to us too; so we have to stand against this,” El Kafrawi told the crowd.
The students described their demands as basic prerequisites for justice.
“We do not feel the presence of true legislation, which is why we are protesting. We are not just protesting for the sake of it; we are protesting because we have demands,” said Merna El Bary, one of the movement’s representatives and the student union (SU) chair of politics and representation.
Egypt’s newly imposed protest law dictates that protestors are to notify authorities at least three working days prior to holding any demonstrations. They are also required to report the slogans they plan to chant, the protest demands and its start and end time.
The law allows police to disperse any assemblies and arrest any individuals that commit crimes they see as “non-peaceful acts.” To disperse a protest, the law dictates that police must gradually follow certain steps, which start with asking participants to leave, then using water cannons, and then batons and teargas.
If participants do not respond to those measures, forces are permitted to use rubber bullets and birdshots to disperse the crowd.
“Reda was killed on the CU campus by a birdshot while police forces were dispersing a protest. This is very reminiscent to the acts committed by the MOI during the January 25 Revolution,” said one of the protests participants, who requested to remain anonymous.
El Bary told the Caravan, “The law entails many things that I am against; it came at the wrong time in the wrong country. It is being manipulated by a corrupt authority that is using it to oppress citizens.”
She added that when parliament is elected, people could then decide whether a protest law would be acceptable and what it should entail.
“In CU, faculty members and students joined and started a general strike; we should start something [of that sort] as soon as possible to keep in pace and be able to jointly voice our demands,” said Taher El Moataz Bellah, former SU president.
El Moataz Bellah added that a general strike must happen as soon as possible; otherwise, the movement will gradually lose its momentum as people will lose interest.
“The numbers here today in the protest will not grow. This is the most we will get so I believe that we should act immediately and start the strike tomorrow before people start forgetting Mohamed Reda’s case,” he said.
El Kafrawi, on the other hand, said that a general strike should start later on, so that they could raise awareness during that week.
“I believe that the amount of people who attended, giving the fact that the event was created over the weekend, was an achievement,” said El Kafrawi.
He added that it should be taken into consideration that the semester is coming to an end and that the major occurrences are taking place in CU, which some AUC students cannot relate to.
“We must have the faculty and worker’s support. We have talked to several faculty members who are willing to start a strike as well; however, starting the strike in a week will help us raise awareness and gather as many supporters as possible,” El Kafrawi said.
El Bary added that all students must be included in the movement and that spreading awareness is necessary to ensure the success of the cause. She said that awareness could be spread through creative means.
“We need students to learn ‘protest culture’ such as graffiti, music and videos that can be created to raise awareness regarding specific causes,” she added.
Mina Magdy, petroleum engineering junior and founding member of the revolutionary movement, said, “We are planning with 30 other universities in preparation for what might come next. We want this movement to cause actual change and unity of all students from different universities is a must.”
El Bary said working on external relations is also very important to change AUC’s isolated nature.
In her opinion, working with different universities can help reaching collective goals quickly and efficiently.
“[Nation-wide] universities are in a state of revolt and are all putting aside political affiliations; we can take unified actions against the state to reach common goals,” she said, adding that the AUC Revolutionary Movement is contacting other movements across Egypt to create a unified front.
She added that the AUC movement wants to create a front that can be sustained even after the current demands are met so that it can pursue any future goals and purposes.
One student protestor said that more AUCians could join the cause if they become properly informed about the protest law which permits police forces to enter university premises and potentially kill a fellow student, as was the case at CU.
Upon discussing their demands, one of the organizers said, “We have one basic thing in common with every other university: we are completely against the entrance of police forces into any campus.”
