UCEAP suspends program in Cairo after political unrest in Egypt escalates

The original original headline accompanying this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.

University of California students originally set to study abroad in Egypt this fall will be sent to other Middle Eastern destinations as violent unrest and political uncertainty escalate in the country.

Last week, the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and his administration after more than 20 million Egyptians signed a petition to oust him from office.

Violent protests to Morsi’s deposition and counter-protests in support of the military’s action have since erupted and divided the country, pitting Egyptian citizens against each other in the streets of Cairo.

In response to the current turmoil, UC Education Abroad Program officials suspended its only Egypt program at the American University in Cairo. Students have the option of studying in Jordan, Morocco, Turkey or Israel instead, said Inés DeRomaña, a health principal policy analyst for the UC Education Abroad Program.

Study abroad officials suspended the fall program because the U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning to U.S. citizens, saying they should delay travel to Egypt or evacuate the country.

“There’s nothing to indicate to us right now that the situation is going to get better soon or that the (travel) warning will be lifted,” DeRomaña said.

There are currently no UCLA students studying abroad in Egypt, said Tod Tamberg, a UCLA spokesman. UCLA does not have a summer study abroad program in the country.

Other UC campuses have already taken action to evacuate UC community members from Egypt. UC Davis officials had 10 UC students evacuated from its program in Cairo last week, according to a UC Davis statement. UC Berkeley officials sent out an email to their campus asking for help in identifying any UC students, faculty and staff in Egypt.

UC study abroad officials could not say whether they think the upcoming spring program in Egypt will also be suspended, since the political situation in Egypt is so volatile and unpredictable, DeRomaña said.

“We feel really bad for the students. It’s a very, very difficult decision we had to make,” DeRomaña said. “But we had to make it for their safety.”

Brendan Jackson, a third-year global studies student and former Daily Bruin news writer, was one of the UC students signed up to study at the American University in Cairo in the spring. After being advised to cancel his trip to Egypt by his friends, family and Arabic teacher, Sahar Youssef, he said he would no longer study abroad in Egypt.

He said he is disappointed that he will not get to study in Egypt, a country he said is important to study since it is a “big piece in the puzzle” to solve several current issues in the Middle East and to study the U.S.’s influence in the region.

Youssef, an Egyptian native who came to UCLA for graduate study after earning her bachelor’s degree in Egypt, called the military’s oust of Morsi and the unrest that followed a “miscarriage of democracy.”

She said the unrest in Egypt is because its democracy is still too new an institution for the country.

The current upheaval in Egypt marks the second major burst of protests the country has experienced in two years.

Opponents to Morsi blame him for failing to remedy Egypt’s social problems, including crime and a poor economy. They also say Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president in its history, was on his way to creating an authoritarian regime, said UCLA history professor James Gelvin, who studies the modern Middle East.

Morsi’s supporters, however, say with only one year in office he didn’t have enough time to adequately establish the country’s first-ever democratic government.

The future of Egypt’s stability partly depends on how the Muslim Brotherhood reacts to the oust. It could engage in acts of violence or try to regain power by re-entering the political process, Gelvin said.

Egypt’s future also depends on how long the military will occupy the government and how it will set up for the next administration, Gelvin said.

Gelvin said he cannot predict what will happen next in Egypt, or for how long the unrest will continue there.

“I’m so worried and so sad to see the Egyptian people divided in this way,” Youssef said. “It’s still early to predict what will happen in Egypt tomorrow.”

Correction: The word “political” was misspelled.

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