AUC students to start civil disobedience against military

The AUC Student Union heaped more pressure on Egypt’s military junta after announcing it would take part in a planned civil disobedience on 11 February, the day autocratic president Hosni Mubarak left office last year. The deadly football riots in Port Said on Wednesday, which left around 73 fans dead and scores injured, sent shockwaves across Egypt and prompted pro-democracy activists to launch scathing attacks on the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which remains defiant. SCAF plans to hand over power to an elected president by the end of June but protesters insist it should step down immediately. “We announce our participation in a complete civil disobedience on 11 February until the tyrannical military council leaves. We will hold them responsible for what will happen if they decline to immediately hand over power to a civilian authority,” the union said in a statement. “We also call on the students of all universities to join us in the civil disobedience and the protest marches we are planning to hold on that day.” Earlier on Saturday, Students of the populous Cairo University and, separately, the smaller German University in Cairo (GUC) declared they would protest and desist classes starting 11 February. “Our demands are: sacking the current government and the public prosecutor, appointing a revolutionary government and forming a committee to hold to account the culprits for the crimes of torture and killings which have occurred since the revolution,” the union added. “We will fulfill our target even if that costs us our lives.”