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On Monday 31st March, Hamas activists entered the university compound to stage a rally that Hamas insisted on holding inside the university campus. According to the New York Times, the rally was in memory of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Islamic group who was killed in an Israeli air strike in March 2004. The activists proceeded to hang pictures of Hamas leaders and Hamas flags on classroom walls. When members of the academic staff outside protested to the rally, Hamas police beat them with clubs, according to Ayman Shaheen, a professor of political science at the university. A number of female students were also attacked - those wounded were all wearing colourful headscarves in deference to Islamic rules of modesty, the New York Times has said. Hamas denied it had acted improperly and said that the police were simply restoring order. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has urged the Hamas regime to maintain academic freedom in the Gaza Strip. The storming of Al-Azhar University will undoubtedly throw into turmoil recent moves towards reconciliation and national unity between Fatah and Hamas. URGENT
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