{"id":29334,"date":"2019-01-16T00:24:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T00:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29334"},"modified":"2019-01-16T00:24:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T00:24:43","slug":"al-azhar-reinstates-female-student-expelled-over-hug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29334","title":{"rendered":"Al-Azhar reinstates female student expelled over hug"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nCAIRO:\u00a0Egypt\u2019s Al-Azhar University on Monday reversed an earlier decision to expel a student after she was filmed hugging a male friend.<\/p>\n

\nA video that went viral earlier this month shows a man bearing a bouquet of flowers, kneeling before a woman and then hugging her.<\/p>\n

\nA university spokesman, Ahmed Zarie, said the woman was expelled because the video had sparked outcry and she had given the institution a \u201cbad reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBut there was an intervention from the country\u2019s top cleric, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, who called on the university to reconsider.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHe cited the student\u2019s age and her educational future, although he described her conduct outside campus as unacceptable and unbecoming.<\/p>\n

\nDays later the university said it would scrap the punishment and instead stop her from sitting exams this term.<\/p>\n

\nThe woman protested her innocence.\u00a0 \u201cI did not even know he would come (to the university),\u201d she told local media Ahl Masr. \u201cMy friends asked me to close my eyes and when I saw him he had flowers. One of the students shot the incident and later I was surprised with what happened in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe video was shot at Mansoura University in the north, where the man in the video is a student, according to news agency AFP.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are almost engaged and I won\u2019t leave her until we get married,\u201d said the man in a separate video. He was expelled from Mansour University for two years over the hug.<\/p>\n

\nThe hugging video, and the reaction to it, prompted a debate online and also the hashtag \u201clove is not a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOne of the most popular tweets supported the woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI am supporting the female student in Mansoura. I am ready to defend her, and I have many colleagues who will fight against her expulsion decision,\u201d said lawyer Mohamed Abdel Aziz.<\/p>\n

\nAnother tweet, from Ahmed El-Sonbaty, said: \u201cLove is not a crime but a blatant act and wrongdoing is a crime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nOne social media user asked why only the woman was being blamed, condemning society and the media\u2019s double standards and hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s all nonsense!\u201d tweeted Youmna Sheta, from Mansoura. \u201cPublic and talk shows labeled the poor girl to be \u2018the hug girl\u2019 while they left the guy without a label! As if the hug is an action taken by only one person!\u201d<\/p>\n

\nShe said that students were being targeted while other groups, who published photos that featured hugging and drinking, were left alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAIRO:\u00a0Egypt\u2019s Al-Azhar University on Monday reversed an earlier decision to expel a student after she was filmed hugging a male friend. A video that went viral earlier this month shows a man bearing a bouquet of flowers, kneeling before a woman and then hugging her. A university spokesman, Ahmed Zarie, said the woman was expelled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}