Cairo University sacks five academics over Islamist link

Egypt’s main state-run institution Cairo University has expelled five lecturers for having links with the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the latest in a clampdown on Islamist academics in the Arab country.

The university said in a statement last week Friday that the sackings have been carried out after the five were placed by court orders on the “list of terrorists”, an official term referring to followers of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“As a legal consequence, this listing strips them of good behaviour, reputation and eligibility, which are necessary terms to hold public posts,” the university added.

The sacked lecturers included Rashad el-Bayoumi, a science professor and the Muslim Brotherhood’s deputy head, who was arrested in mid-2013 following the army’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The four others were identified as Bakinam el-Sharqawi, a political science professor who previously served as Morsi’s advisor; Essam Hashish, an engineering professor; Ahmed el-Zeheiri, a professor at the agriculture school; and Abdul Rahman el-Shabrawi, a pharmacology professor.

The sackings can be challenged in court.

President of Cairo University Mohamed Othman said the expulsions have been unanimously approved by the institution’s board in compliance with an anti-terrorism law issued in 2015.

“The university is being purged of persons and groups linked to outlawed terrorist groups,” Othman, a philosophy professor, told private newspaper Al Shorouk.

In late 2013, Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation and blamed the Islamist group for a string of deadly attacks that has hit the country since Morsi’s removal.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which has affiliates worldwide, has denied links to violence and accused Egyptian authorities of suppression.

Dozens of Islamist lecturers and students have been expelled and jailed in Egypt after being convicted of inciting or involvement in violence since Morsi’s toppling.

In 2015, the state-run Zagazig University dismissed Morsi from his job as an engineering lecturer after he was convicted in several court cases.

Local and foreign rights groups have repeatedly accused the Egyptian government of muzzling dissent.

In a separate case, Cairo University last week expelled Amr Hamzawy, a prominent opposition activist and a lecturer at the institution’s political science school.

The university said that Hamzawy, now staying in the United States, had been expelled for being away for more than two years without permission and after the university sent him three warnings over his absence.

Commenting on the decision, Hamzawy said he had applied twice to Cairo University for unpaid leave in order to work at the George Washington University and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The board of the political science faculty at Cairo University approved my request for the leave, but the university’s board rejected it, saying that conditions for being given unpaid leave do not apply to me,” Hamzawy, an ex-member of parliament, wrote on his Facebook page.