The German University in Cairo's student union resigned Wednesday after university administrators demanded that five students expelled for protesting offer a public apology before being allowed to return to school.
The expelled students had participated in a February memorial for Karim Khouzam — a first-year management student slain in the Port Said stadium violence that killed more than 70 people, and for which the ruling military council was accused of mismanaging the country. At the memorial, they chanted against military rule and university officials with ties to former President Hosni Mubarak's regime.
“The university is going these days through a state of a lamentable deterioration due to the decisions the administration took regarding the expulsion of students for exercising their political rights,” said Omar Abdel Wahab, head of the GUC Student Union and one of the expelled students.
The expelled students refused to file a complaint to the university administration due to their sense of humiliation and injustice at the hands of their university, so the union decided to resign collectively, according to Abdel Wahab.
Hundreds of GUC students continued protesting outside the university Wednesday, demanding the return of their five expelled colleagues. Al-Badeel online news portal said a number of students at other universities also announced their solidarity with the GUC students and joined a sit-in that is in its seventh day.
According to Abdel Wahab, the university administration contacted the expelled students' parents to resolve the problem amicably and said the students would have to make a public apology. Wahab said the students rejected the offer as a violation of their rights.
