DUSHANBE, June 5, 2009, Asia-Plus — Five Tajik students that were studying in Egypt are expected to be deported to Tajikistan, according to the MFA information department.
The MFA spokesman Davlat Nazriyev told Asia-Plus on Friday that Egyptian authorities decided to deport Tajik student because they violated rules of stay of foreign citizens in Egypt.
We will recall that more than 150 foreign students, including 15 Tajik nationals, were detained in a police raid on Al-Azhar University in Cairo on May 27. Six of Tajik students were released the same day and four others were released on May 30.
“Our students had visa problems; two of them have even not been registered with our Embassy in Cairo,” said Nazriyev, “Since the students arrived in Egypt for studying on their own they will be deported to Tajikistan on their own.”
In the meantime, Radio Liberty reported on June 4 that police in Cairo on May 27 detained some 150 students from former Soviet countries who are studying at Al-Azhar University. They gave no explanation for the detentions.
One student, Halim Mohammad, told RFE/RL that it is unclear why he and his fellow students were detained. He said there was no interrogation, questioning, or charges made during their three days in detention. Another Tajik student, Safar Tohiri, who returned to Tajikistan before the arrests were made, says it is very likely that the detentions were the result of visa problems, adding that some Russian and Kazakh students at Al-Azhar University had entered Egypt with tourist visas which they later changed to student visas.
