SILVER LININGStop Beating up University Students [Archives:2008/1120/Opinion]
Dr. Mohammed Al-Qadhi
I have asked one of my friends last week: Did you have police officers or soldiers positioned at colleagues when you were a university student? His reply was “No, what for? Only during protests, we used to see riot police; otherwise we did not have any.” My friend studied in Tunisia during the 1980s. Sana'a University students have been protesting the harassment and beating up of the two brothers Jameel and Murad Soba'e at the hands of the chief intelligence officer at the faculty of arts. It is disgusting to hear such kind of news. They have demanded the stop of the militarization of the university and cried for change of the university guards and holding the attackers accountable.
Normally, universities are established to be centers for creation and service of the community; they are places for scientific researching, providing solutions facing communities, generating skilled people and therefore are a key instrument in the overall development drive. However, in Yemen this role is not envisaged and therefore, the government deploys security and intelligence personnel to universities, turning them to military barracks. Their business is to tease students and professors and be a source of fear and threat for these people. They do not stick to the tasks assigned to them, but go beyond to harassing and even brutally beating up students. The case of the Soba'e brothers is not the first as similar abuses were reported before. Nevertheless, perpetrators were not held accountable.
At least, these soldiers and police officers should be trained before they are sent to serve at the universities. They should be told they are to deal with universality students and academicians rather than criminals. If they received such kind of training, we would not have heard every now and then stories of brutal acts exercised by university guards against students.
I wonder why we need a security or intelligence department at each college. When you go to the head office of the university, the security office is the first to see. Security men are hovering around in their uniform dress. They are even paid bonuses from the university budget. This gives you the impression you are in a military compound rather than a university. Why is this militarization of universities and education institutions?
Even the appointments of deans and rectors have been politicized. These people are not selected because of their merit and competence but their political affiliation. Such standards have brought very weak people who are run by people outside the university campus. Are the people in charge so afraid of the universities? Why should they turn them into centers for their intelligence operations, political showdown and do not respect the role for which they have been created? I guess such things do not exist even in totalitarian regimes.
In short, the government should cherish the role of the university and stop embroiling it into its political fights and games. In fact, both the ruling and opposition parties should give up using the academic institutions as instruments in their fight. For God's sake, hold your hand and let these institutions operate freely and according to the set academic standards if you want them to contribute into the welfare of this society.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Qadhi ([email protected]) is a Yemeni journalist and columnist.
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[archive-e:1120-v:15-y:2008-d:2008-01-14-p:opinion]
