CAIRO: Tens of students from Akhbar al-Youm Academy surrounded the dean's office for several hours on Saturday, refusing to allow him to leave and demanding that he resigns. The students accused the Academy's head Ahmed Zaki Badr of being affiliated with the former regime as a former member of the deposed ruling National Democratic Party. Badr remained in locked inside his office for hours before military police arrived and freed him, despite the students' protests. As Badr was escorted out of the building, some officers told the students that he will no longer remain the head of the academy. Badr, the son of former a Minister of Interior Zaki Badr, was Minister of Education in January 2010 until the Egyptian uprising that erupted that same month forced him out along with the rest of the Egyptian cabinet. He then moved on to become the head of AY Academy, the educational and academic wing of the state-run Akhbar al-Youm news institution, one of Egypt biggest state-owned news outlets. Student activists reported that many attempts to free Badr failed until the military arrived. They said Badr was strongly affiliated with the old regime and refused to allow him to continue in his post. They also accused him of oppressing opposition student gatherings at Ain Shams University when he was a professor there. Another student activist said the academy called some of the protesting student's families and threatened them that their sons and daughters would be expelled if they remained outside Badr's office. The recent AY protest is part of a growing student movement aimed at “cleansing” educational institutions from affiliates of the old regime. On Saturday, a similar protest took place when students at Mansoura University surrounded a car that was carrying the deans of the medical school and humanities before the driver took off in haste, injuring at least 15 students. BM
