AS THE new academic year began this week, security officials were scrutinising the files of thousands of university students, particularly those in Upper Egypt, searching for possible new recruits to Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya. The Interior Ministry described this measure as a new strategy aimed at weeding out suspected Islamist militants among university students.
This unprecedented measure targets thou-ands of students, particularly freshmen en-olled in the universities of Minya, Assiut, Sohag and Qena. But security officials say that only students with suspicious links to underground organisations will be targetted.
By introducing this "strategy", the min-stry aims at preventing the Gama'a from winning new recruits on the campuses of Upper Egypt, a security official said. This became necessary, the official added, after the investigation into November's Luxor at-ack -- which killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians -- revealed that two of the six as-ailants were students at Assiut University. Police were not aware that the two had joined militant ranks because they had be-ome members of the Gama'a only a few months before the carnage.
Each university student is now required to provide his residential address as well as a certificate from his landlord listing the names of any other people sharing the apart-ent with him. Students staying at university hostels are required to fill in a form with full data about themselves and their families, and to include their pictures.
The new measure also categorises students according to their home governorates "to make it easier to trace any student suspected of having links with illegal groups," the source said.
Immunity dropped
THE LEGISLATIVE committee of the Shu-a Council decided on Monday to strip Mo-amed Abdel-Aal, an appointed Council member and one of two men battling for control of the Social Justice Party, of his parliamentary immunity to enable him to testify before the courts in three lawsuits filed against him.
One lawsuit was brought by singer/actress Warda, who accused Abdel-Aal of slan-ering her on the pages of Al-Watan Al-Arabi, the party's defunct newspaper, while he was editor-in-chief. Al-Watan Al-Arabi had claimed that Warda was drunk when she sang before President Hosni Mubarak during celebrations last year marking the 1973 War.
This is the second time that Abdel-Aal loses his parliamentary immunity. He has faced charges of bribery, forgery and slan-ering businessmen.
Destructive trees
A NUMBER of trees planted in the Giza Plateau have been uprooted because the wa-er they need has had a destructive effect on monuments buried in the area, antiquities officials said.
A green belt of trees was planned to pro-ect a section of the Greater Cairo Ring Road that was to pass through the plateau. But now that the section is to be re-routed, the plan was scrapped.
"Watering the trees was beginning to af-ect the Osiris cemetery, which includes a number of wooden sarcophagi and wooden statues. Therefore, the trees had to be up-ooted," said Zahi Hawas, director-general of the Giza Plateau. "Trees can be re-planted but monuments cannot be rebuilt."
Earlier this month, a ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri decided to invite UNESCO ex-erts to consult on the Ring Road's new route. Work on a section of the road that passes through the Giza Plateau was stopped in 1994 after protests from UNESCO, which classifies the area as a world heritage site. The following year Egypt reached agreement with UNESCO on re-routing the road, but details remain to be worked out.
"There are clear-cut instructions from the prime minister that no one can build any-hing in that area, which should be well-preserved," said Hawas. "We are waiting for the arrival of the UNESCO experts to suggest alternative routes."
Meanwhile, work on other sections of the 100-kilometre road is continuing.
A happy ending
THE ORDEAL of Mahasen Hamid, an Iraqi woman seeking political asylum in Germany and stranded at Cairo International Airport, and her three children appears to be over. According to Panos Moumtziz, a Cairo-based official with the UN High Commis-ioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mahasen will finally be re-united with her husband who was granted political asylum by Ger-any in 1992.
"The German government was very coop-rative when we submitted her case to it. A process that usually takes months was ex-edited very quickly. She left Cairo Saturday night on her way to being re-united with her husband," Moumtziz told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Mahasen is the wife of Hadi Al-Mohamed, a Shi'ite who fled Iraq for Ger-any after participating in a 1991 rebellion against President Saddam Hussein's regime. Mahasen fled Iraq via Jordan. After reaching Cairo, she boarded a flight to Budapest but was sent back because she did not have an entry visa. She was kept at Cairo Airport, where she was given a room for herself and her three children. "That was okay. At least she was safe. And now, there is a happy ending," Moumtziz said.
