More absurdity from Egypt. About 50 students at Cairo universityhave been banned from completing their end-of-year exams because of their unauthorised activities on campus. They broke the rules, apparently, by sticking up anti-smoking posters.

Perhaps the nastiest part of it is the way they were informed of the ban:

“They received letters at home yesterday,” says Ashraf Omar, a student who has not been targeted by the university administration.

“Nobody warned them, or even brought it to their attention before. They all just received letters at home telling them they would not be allowed to take the final portion of their year-end exams.”

According to the students, the letters bore a post date of 17 April, and cited the university’s decision as having been taken on 31 March.

“They waited to send these letters out,” fumes Mostafa. “They wanted us to receive them now, in the midst of our exams – so it would be too late to do anything real about it.”

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 5 May 2010.