Thursday
05Mar2009
The AUC Gestapo
Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 3:25AM
Around a couple of years before I left the AUC in 2001, the administration had brought this notorious State Security Police General Ashraf Kamal to be in charge of campus security. During my interrogation under torture in Lazoughli in October 2000, the SS officers were repeatedly bragging the "AUC is ours. Our men run it."
What went on from the moment this General took control has been nothing but the increasing "militarization" of the university security: more guards, more walkie talkies, an increasing gestapo-like attitude in dealing with student activists, more restrictions on political activism, severe intimidation of activists and staff...
AUC professors had spoken to me several times about this guy, expressing their sheer frustration that more or less he has the final say in how things are run in the administration, not the university's academic staff--which is the same complaint heard from their colleagues in the local universities.
It seems now General Ashraf and his henchmen are busying themselves with the workers on campus.. I was reading this blog, when I came across stories of workers who died during the four-year effort to erect the new AUC campus out in the desert. General Ashraf didn't have any doubts whom to blame for the deaths...
And if that isn't enough...
What went on from the moment this General took control has been nothing but the increasing "militarization" of the university security: more guards, more walkie talkies, an increasing gestapo-like attitude in dealing with student activists, more restrictions on political activism, severe intimidation of activists and staff...
AUC professors had spoken to me several times about this guy, expressing their sheer frustration that more or less he has the final say in how things are run in the administration, not the university's academic staff--which is the same complaint heard from their colleagues in the local universities.
It seems now General Ashraf and his henchmen are busying themselves with the workers on campus.. I was reading this blog, when I came across stories of workers who died during the four-year effort to erect the new AUC campus out in the desert. General Ashraf didn't have any doubts whom to blame for the deaths...
The tragedies happened because of human error, said Gen. Ashraf Kamal, head of security. “All the deaths occurred through mistakes made by the workers themselves, not by the company,” he said.
And if that isn't enough...
Campus security was in fact involved in quelling protests, after several hundred workers rallied for the family of one dead worker who was left without compensation, according to Gen. Mohsen Wadie, deputy director for security.
tagged AUC, Ashraf Kamal, EgyptianStateSecurityGestapo, gestapo, human, pigs, police, workers in Education, Egypt
AUC, Ashraf Kamal, EgyptianStateSecurityGestapo, gestapo, human, pigs, police, workers in Education, Egypt
Reader Comments (1)
Indeed. By 2003/04, they actually had a couple of people who were clearly tasked with surveillance of 'activist' students: Magdy (a portly fair-haired, green-eyed dude) and Hamada (ahmed, i think, a thin, slick-looking young guy with black hair and eyes).
And they made practically no effort to disguise the fact. They would snoop around all the mun/mal-hosted panels and talks and would be the main 'AUC' security focal points whenever there was any activism going on.
In fact, long after i graduated, whenever i showed up on campus, it was only a matter of a few minutes before they would appear, feigning camaraderie. They were annoying and frustrating, to say the least. But they could be equally amusing. If we were in the right mindset, we could have a lot of fun talking to them as they tried to weasel information out of us.
On a side note, it's a shame that turn of the century witnessed such a sudden loss of activism on auc. It was bad enough at the time, but from what i hear now, activism is a joke. Of course it doesnt help that AUC has cut itself off from Cairo.