Over the past week thousands of Students and Workers at the American University in Cairo have been staging an ongoing sit-in and partial strike protesting unjustified increases in fees, corruption in management, low workers wages, the issue of workers without contract or medical and social security benefits, the resignation of various officials at the university connected to State Security and the opening of an investigation into the snipers who shot at protesters in Tahrir having been allowed onto the campus rooftop.

On Wednesday Thousand of students and workers marched into the Management building and occupied it, refusing to leave until the University President Lisa Anderson came out to speak to them after Two weeks of attempting to get her to address them.

Mostafa a Security worker said, “I don’t have a contract I have no proof that I work at this university. I have been here for two years, they fire me every 5 months and rehire me so as to avoid giving me a contract. They work me 16 hour shifts, don’t pay me my overtime and I take home LE 800 per month. We have been here for two weeks now and we have been fighting this for a year and noone will listen to us.  If Lisa Anderson and Mahmoud Zooq will not respect us then they must leave and we will fight this till we achieve all our rights, with the students by our side.”

The protesters also took down the American Flag on Thursday, folded it up and sent it to Lisa Anderson’s Office. Ahmad Ezzat VP of the Student Union said, “The flag is that of the country that this institution represents and a symbol of the values that this institution is meant to uphold. If Lisa Anderson wishes to call us barbaric and unruly because we choose to take our matters into our own hands through protest and strike action, as did the founders of her country, if she refuses to afford us the respect of addressing the violation of our rights and our legitimate demands, then this institution may not raise its flag on our Campus.”

See Video of occupation here …