Campaign forces University of Liverpool to scrap plans for Egypt campus

A campaign by UCU members at the University of Liverpool and University of Cambridge, which was backed by hundreds of academics from across the UK and Egypt Solidarity Initiative, has won a significant victory. According to leaked documents published on the Academic Freedom Watch website, the University of Liverpool was worried about the potential for…

Analysis: How Sisi’s real-estate salesmen are luring UK universities to Egypt

In this analysis article from Middle East Solidarity magazine, issue 9, Anne Alexander investigates how Egypt’s military dictatorship is hoping to entice UK universities to invest in its grandiose building projects. Meanwhile academics are challenging university managers’ bid to cosy up to a regime which systematically represses human rights and academic freedoms, reports Leon Rocha…

Embassy protest highlights lack of progress in Giulio Regeni case

Campaigners from Amnesty International and UCU gathered at the Egyptian embassy in London on 23 September to highlight the lack of progress in finding the perpetrators of the January 2016 murder and torture of Cambridge University graduate student Giulio Regeni amid continuing attacks on human rights activists in Egypt. The protest follows on from a…

Lecturers’ union congress discusses Egypt crackdown

The issue of forced disappearances and other human rights violations was high on the agenda at the annual congress of lecturers’ union UCU, held in Brighton on 27-29 May. The union pledged to continue support for the Truth for Giulio / Justice for Egypt’s Disappeared campaign in a resolution, while delegates heard a report back…

Italian senator: government must resist pressure to return ambassador to Cairo seven months on from Giulio’s murder

by Carlotta Mingardi Seven months after the body of Giulio Regeni, the young Italian researcher from Cambridge, was found lifeless in Cairo, with evident signs of torture, Italian senator Luigi Manconi,  Amnesty Italy and Giulio’s parents are calling on the Italian government to resist pressure from Egypt to restore full diplomatic relations. Italian civil society has also…