The German University in Cairo (GUC) is once again in the headlines, this time because of an ongoing dispute between the GUC's administration and student union leaders. Ahead of the new academic year GUC's disciplinary committee announced that it was expelling one student and suspending five others for taking part in what it claimed were “riots”. Punishments against two other students who had admitted their mistakes and apologised were lifted. In a statement issued on 30 July GUC said it had taken measures against six students for “participating in riots, detentions, causing physical injuries, disrupting exams and studies and assaulting university students, staff, and personnel.” “The university has the right to take all necessary measures to protect the academic environment,” the statement said. Many parents choose to place their children in the GUC to give them a “better future” and the university was committed to providing an academic environment that encourages innovation and success. According to the disciplinary council the decision was made after reviewing all the available evidence. The origins of the dispute date back to March 2015 when hundreds of students organised a sit-in to protest the death of 19-year-old engineering student Yara Tarek Negm after she was hit by a university bus. They demanded that the parking system be improved, all personnel responsible for the accident be held accountable and campus emergency services be overhauled. A video that circulated at the time showed an altercation between some students and GUC's president as they surrounded his car for a few minutes. In mid-July four GUC drivers and the bus supervisor received six month suspended sentences for the accidental killing of Negm. The disciplinary measures taken range from indefinite expulsion to one to three semester suspensions. Hazem Abdel-Khalek, head of the GUC's student union, was suspended for three semesters. Those affected say they will contest the measures in the courts and claim there is no evidence against them. In May three of the students now subject to disciplinary measures were detained for four days by the prosecution on charges of assaulting GUC's president and security guards. They were later released without bail pending investigation. Vice President of the Student Union Karim Naguib, who is the student that was expelled, says the university has asked him to attend two administrative investigations since May. “In the first investigation we were questioned individually for up to six hours by the newly established crisis management department. Then the university asked me to attend a final investigation in July.” Naguib says all the affected students intend to file cases against GUC at the administrative court. It is not the first time, he adds, that GUC has taken “arbitrary measures against students”. In 2012 several students were expelled for taking part in a demonstration protesting the death of their colleague, Karim Khozam, in the Port Said stadium massacre. The expulsions were subsequently annulled by the administrative court and GUC forced to reduce the punishment to a two-week suspension.
