Dental Student
I’m saving this article here because the Yemen Observer links expire:
YO
Expelled students raise storm of protest
By Amira Al-Sharif& Mohammed Al-Attab
Apr 25, 2005 - Vol.VIII Issue 16
SANA’A - Eight hundred Sana’a University students gathered before the dentistry faculty Monday chanting “Dr. Saleh [Baserah], where is freedom, where is justice?” and “Enough, enough, enough of the dictator.”
Faculty of dentistry student Abdul-Rahman Al-Muzai said that “these students have gathered in my support to demand that the dean’s decision to suspend my studies be repealed.”
Rector of the dentistry faculty Dr. Ali Mansour Al-Shafi’i said that the protests were made in support of Al-Muzai, who “has written in a number of newspapers complaining about the faculty and has insulted his doctors and his rector.”
“He has also refused to respond to the department of student affairs, so the university council decided to suspend his studies in the faculty for some time,” said Al-Shafi’i, who meanwhile said the demonstrating students were not from his faculty, are were not allowed to protest in front of the faculty of dentistry.
During the protests, Al-Muzai said that two dentistry students had in fact been expelled, and they should be reinstated “regardless of what they did.”
He said that all he had written was a criticism of the condition of the faculty’s laboratories and libraries, and asked that they be improved.
Watching the protests and unable to get inside the faculty, student Mohammed Al-Najri said, “Dr. Ali is like a father and he should be respected. Whether in his early years or whether in university, a student should be punished if he did something improper.”
Adel Basher, head of the Yemeni Students’ Union, declared, “This strike was organized by the heads of the Yemeni Students’ Union and members of administrative organizations. An investigation has been done into a number of students by the dean of the dentistry faculty, Ali Mansour Shafi’i, for personal reasons.”
“The first student was suspended for three weeks from studying in the faculty, the second was expelled for two years and prevented from studying two subjects, and the third student was barred from entering the faculty under the directives of the faculty due to an article which he published a year ago,” said Basher. He did not provide the names of the suspended students, nor did he offer to explain the discrepancy in the number of suspensions he thought the students had gathered to protest.
Rector of Sana’a University Saleh Baserah refused to meet a committee formed to address the suspensions, said student Lamia Al-Qubati.
