CAIRO - Hundreds of Egyptian students staged protests at the country's top State-owned universities, calling for sacking all university heads. Roughly a hundred students at Cairo University demonstrated on campus, shouting slogans demanding the ousting of the university's principal. It was a similar story at Ain Shams University, Egypt's second-largest academic institution, where more than one hundred students staged a demonstration calling for dismissing all the university's top officials, before the beginning of the academic year due on October 1, and holding free elections for all leading administrative positions. Protesters shouted slogans, enticing students nationwide to follow suit. "Egyptian students, wake up! Even if you study hard and succeed, there will be no future without freedom," demonstrators at Ain Shams University shouted. They stormed the main gate after the guards closed all gates between faculty buildings in a bid to impede the movement of the demonstrators around the campus. No injuries were reported. "There will be a meeting with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Thursday to discuss the demand for sacking university heads," said Khaled Samir, the head of the Universities' Independence Movement. Meanwhile, university polls are in chaos, because of a dispute over the nomination rules for top officials who have been appointed since the January 25 revolution. The country's Supreme Council for Universities has issued new regulations, stipulating that top university officials should resign before running for any administrative position. On Sunday, a general assembly of members of staff at Egyptian State-owned universities said all top positions at the nation's universities were considered to be vacant. These academics have called for free elections, according to rules initiated and approved by a majority in their general assembly last month.
