Five students killed FIVE students were killed and 44 were injured last week in a road accident in the coastal city of Nuweiba. The accident occurred on Saturday when a bus transporting students from the Suez Canal University flipped over three times before crashing into a police checkpoint at the Dahab-Nuweiba desert road. Twenty three passengers were released from Sharm El-Sheikh International Hospital while 16 remained hospitalised, including five cases in intensive care. Hatem El-Gabali, the minister of health, visited the injured and promised they will receive the best medical care available. He also expressed his condolences to the families of those who died. Each of the families of the dead will receive LE15,000, according to Minister of Higher Education Hani Helal. The money to be paid to the injured will vary according to each case. According to press reports, the crash was attributed to technical problems in the bus. Al-Azhar decision overturned THE CAIRO Administrative Court on Sunday revoked Al-Azhar University's decision to dismiss 23 students and ban them from attending their final exams. The court ruling said the students should continue their studies and go ahead with the tests. The students were arrested in December 2006 following a military-style parade they took part in. The parade, organised and performed by those belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood in Al-Azhar University, took place inside the university's campus. The day had begun with hundreds of students starting a demonstration, after which around 50 of them, wearing black uniforms and masks, started a military-like march and gave a martial arts show. The university dismissed 23 of the students and banned them from attending final exams. The court described the university's decision as "illegal". "The decision had to be revoked for the sake of their academic career," the court said. Systematic abuses AMNESTY International (AI) launched its report on systematic human rights abuses in Egypt. The report, Egypt -- Systematic Abuses in the Name of Security, comes nearly a month after the organisation warned that the recent proposed constitutional amendments would reinforce existing practices of arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and unfair trials, and further erode human rights protection. According to the organisation's website, the report was based on interviews with victims of abuse and their relatives, government officials, human rights activists and lawyers. The press conference was attended by Deputy Director of Amnesty International USA Curt Goering, and Deputy Programme Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Secretariat of AI Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. Tanta train fire A CAIRO-Ashmoun train in Tanta, northwest of Cairo, was gutted by fire while parked inside the station on Saturday. Despite the fact that the train was stationary, three passengers were left unconscious from smoke inhalation while hundreds were injured after jumping out of the train windows. The flames also burnt a Cairo-Alexandria train to the ground. The fire created what press reports described as a black cloud that lasted for more than three hours as it engulfed the station which was closed for hours. The lack of fire extinguishers and the presence of wooden and plastic materials inside the trains kept the fire burning for more than two hours. A number of MPs have pressed Minister of Transport Mohamed Mansour about the incident. The ministry is to issue a report soon. The train's driver, Hassan Doura and a security officer, Osama Khalafallah, are on the run. Asylum sought FORTY SIX detainees presented a handwritten letter to the Maat Law Centre on Monday requesting they be stripped of their Egyptian citizenship and be granted asylum in Israel for what they described as the "inhuman treatment" they and their families received following their arrest after the Azhar bombings in 2005. "We eat expired food and drink filthy water in prison," the prisoners said in their letter. "This has caused many of us to develop liver disease." According to the prisoners' families, many of them have tried to commit suicide inside the prison to escape torture and humiliation. Compiled by Salonaz Sami
