Since the beginning of the second semester of this academic year, student violence has been escalating in Egypt's universities, with Cairo, Ain Shams, Al-Azhar and Zagazig universities all witnessing violent clashes between “anti-coup” students and those who are against ousted former president Mohamed Morsi. On 23 March, bomb disposal squads defused three primitive bombs located inside the Cairo University campus. One of them was near the university's administrative building, which was hosting a conference on Israel at that time. Another bomb was located near the university's faculty of arts, and the last was near the faculty of economics and political science. Police officials reported that “monitoring cameras placed inside university premises showed that the rudimentary bombs had been placed inside the university by pro-Morsi students. After checking the tapes, the police discovered that the students who had placed the bombs did not belong to the university. The police are still looking for the perpetrators.” On 19 March, the Students Against the Coup (SAC) movement organised protests at the country's universities to condemn the arrests of students and the verdicts that have been handed down against some of them. The protests escalated into clashes with the security forces, leaving 40 students wounded. As a result of the clashes, the President of Cairo University, Gaber Nassar, decided on 21 March to expel 23 students for causing disturbances inside university premises. Nassar's decision was based on the newly amended law governing the country's universities that allows university presidents to expel students suspected of acts harming or endangering the educational process, inciting violence or harming people or property. Any expulsion order must follow an investigation into the incident that incriminated the students. “The university has acted against the SAC for destroying the main gate of the law faculty, destroying surveillance cameras, and raising the flag of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Some students were also photographed carrying the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq,” Nassar said. Students who had been shown to have participated in the 19 March clashes were also expelled from university dorms. The SAC movement condemned the security forces for what it called the “aggressive attacks on protesting students,” using teargas, birdshot and live ammunition. The movement claimed that two female students at the engineering faculty had been shot dead while attending classes during last week's clashes. The SAC issued a statement describing the expulsion of the students as a “continuation of the oppression of students.” The movement accused the university of “relinquishing students to please the armed forces.” Several other universities have also witnessed protests, but none as intense as those that have taken place at Al-Azhar in Cairo. Four students have been killed at the university since the beginning of last semester, and students at the institution have protested against the imprisoning and expulsion of their colleagues. They have also destroyed the separation wall built by the university to protect its property as well as that of its employees and staff. The wall had separated the student dormitories from the administrative buildings. The police raided the university campus to control rioting after the attacks on the separation wall and the university's presidency building. On 22 March, the Nasr City Misdemeanours Court sentenced 16 students to three years in prison for participating in last December's clashes. On 20 March, 17 others were sentenced to 14 years in prison and LE90, 000 fines for rioting, damaging public property, burning vehicles and attacking security personnel and Al-Azhar staff. The spokesman of the Al-Azhar SAC students, Youssef Mosallam, condemned the verdicts and said that “it is no surprise to see such verdicts from the judicial system of the coup. It's not the first time we have seen unjust sentences handed down against students who are exercising their peaceful right of freedom of expression.” Mosallam promised that the movement would continue its “peaceful escalation” in response to the verdicts and that it would continue to contact the imprisoned students and human rights organisations. Meanwhile, the head of Al-Azhar's Students' Union, Mohamed Atef, criticised the violence and the destruction of the separation wall. “Students have the right to express their opinions, but they should do this peacefully without resorting to violence or damaging the university's facilities,” Atef said. Last November, 12 Al-Azhar students were sentenced to 17 years in jail for rioting and damaging university property, in addition to a fine of LE64, 000. In a related incident, the SAC movement at Zagazig University also protested against the arrest of six movement members who were arrested for distributing flyers at the university's premises against the armed forces and what they described as the “military coup.” The protesting students reportedly attempted to break into the university administration's building. As a result, university security personnel used police dogs and batons to disperse the protests. Three students along with ten security personnel were injured. Six students were arrested and sent to the Second Zagazig Police Station in the governorate of Sharkiya. Salma Sami, a student working with the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression's (AFTE) Student Observatory, an NGO, said that university security personnel, aided by students armed with bladed weapons and sticks, had attacked the protest. The use of police dogs had caused several injuries, she said.
