Original Article: Posted on the 5th of September.

The American University in Cairo is one of the greatest, oldest, and prestigious educational places in Egypt, and as we all know, it’s costly.

So this place combines the upper class and the elite in Egypt, the ones that got the best education.

Yet, this place proves by the time it’s not the best place or the safer for girls, significantly.

You all still remember Ahmed Bassam Zaky’s case, the sexual predator. Zaky was an AUCian who used to harass girls at the campus and make them feel unsafe.

Over 50 girls reported him at AUC group “Rate AUC Professors” two years ago, yet surprisingly all their posts were mysteriously deleted from the group.

And now another case emerges…

The Black Camp incident.

First, you need to know what is the “Black Camp.”

To simply put, these camps are equivalent to the political parties, but on a smaller scale, that’s exclusive to the university and its students. They have a government of legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and they represent students.

Basically, it’s something like a student union, but in a more pretentious way. They supposedly help students to indulge in the campus’s life more and have friends, interests, and goals.

They do not have specific ideologies, the priority is for the seniority. Hence, the interests or the rules are set by them, they invite people to these camps to literally have a life in the campus.

What does that leave for the students outside these camps?

Literally, nothing as these camps monopolized everything on the campus.

And, of course, those mysterious camps are invite-only, so many students in the AUC may not hear about them ever; This is considered as a student activity that every student should be allowed to join these camps, why it’s not for everyone?

While we’re not AUC students, we might be unsure of all the benefits these camps have. However, after surveying students who are not involved in the camps, it’s safe to say that those camps are more like sorority and fraternity houses.

They might have some benefits, but they are mostly joined for bragging rights.

With that said, it’s is essential to note that NOT all of those who are members of these camps are involved in the scandal, or that they are bad people in any way. On the contrary, the majority do, in fact, want to make a difference. We might disagree with how effective their attempts are, but we’re in no way saying it’s terrible.

Now back to the scandal

Some of those involved in the “Black camp” apparently have groups on WhatsApp with over 50 participants. Those groups are supposedly made to encourage the Black Camp members into working harder, and with each success, they reward its members.

The rewards, however, are leaked nudes of girls and students in the AUC without their consent.

The attached post is by an AUCian who spent two years tracking down these groups to expose them, and he explains what happens in these groups.

This WhatsApp group has been around since 2012 and lasted till 2018. The group remained for 6 years and continuously exposed innocent girls, and destroying their lives in the process.

After the Facebook post, a former member of the Black Camp took to Twitter to confirm the existence of these groups, and give his first-hand experience in participating in the groups.

You can read the full thread on twitter.

What's written in Selim's thread is, very sadly, true. The group did exist and nudes were circulated on it.

I'll be saying more about this and apologizing in this thread https://t.co/MaJ1H5THzg

— 🌌 (@oweggg) September 4, 2020

Everything was confirmed by the owner of “Assault Police” Nadeen Ashraf.

Nadeen is an AUCian herself, and she confirmed that the group really existed and she knew about it even before enrolling in the university. She confirmed everything that was said in the previous posts and confirmed that most people within the AUC community knew about it.

Assault Police is an Instagram account that started the movement against Ahmed Bassem Zaky, as well as playing a massive role in the Fairmont incident.

Nadeen later interviewed a member of the Black Camp in a live video, and the member was shocked to know about these groups; which suggests she knew nothing about them.

This proves that not everyone in the Black Camp is a part of the group, and that, again, the majority aren’t the wrong people!

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CEuho-AH3HF/?igshid=1ksadlyynp1u9

To get into the bottom of the situation, we interviewed an AUC student, who was not involved in any of the camps to understand the situation from an outsider AUCian’s perspective.

Just like Nadeen from Assault Police said, he told us that he knew about these groups since day one in the university and he was introduced to these groups, but he never joined any of them.

Moreover, he also told us that these groups are not private nor secretive that every single person on the campus knows about them or heard about them.

Also, he explained to us that there are many of these groups that existed for like 10 years not just one but many, and they are not really related to the Black Camp, but they are under their name, and there are members of the Black Camp who are also members of these groups.

He added that these groups not only leak nudes for girls on the campus but outside the university itself.

This means that many girls have their photos leaked without their consent and they don’t know anything about it.

Here comes the closure

So if these groups existed for 10 years and every AUCian knows about them, Why does no one ever take action against them?

Why does the AUC’s administration never take action in regards to anything? If most people in the university knows about this, we’re sure the administration knows about it as well. Let us not forget that most AUCians joke about the fact that the administration has “spies” in every group to know all the students’ news.

We need answers, and we need action, girls’ lives are in danger and not safe and have been like this for 10 years.

It’s time for every member of these groups to held accountable for what they did.

Update 15/9/2020: An investigation has been running those past days.

On the 7th of September, an investigation has been opened regarding this matter in The AUC.

On the 9th of September, The Student Union and Heya have been chosen to take on the task and investigate on this issue and others on the campus. Heya is a student club at the university.

On the 10th of September, Social media accounts have been created to expose the names of the members on this WhatsApp group.

On the 11th of September, The Students Rights Coalition (SRC) on the campus had posted a status defending the group and the members; later then the post was deleted.

On the 12th of September, Mariam Salem, the President of the SRC, posted a statement that she was removed as an admin and the post was shared by members of the Black Camp.

Since then she is trying to regain access to the page to proceed with the agenda of SRC, and she is asking people to unfollow the page because she’s no longer the representative of it.

Sources: Heya

Update 26/9/2020: More leaks from the groups exposed, and the AUC staff are doing nothing.

An Instagram account called “exposingauc2.0” launched yesterday last night, exposing more members of the Black Camp.

The conversation in the leaked messages shows them sharing pictures of underaged girls, sending contacts of their ex-girlfriends so they’d all blackmail them, and even going as far as to discuss the kidnap of the girls.

With the new information, it was noted that some of the members of these groups were sons of academic staff from the AUC, which is why no one has done or is doing, anything about it.

That’s right, even after all of these proofs, the AUC has done absolutely nothing about the issue.

Activist Merhan Keller sent an e-mail to the Head of The Higher Education Departement in the United States addressing this issue.

So far, no one has done anything, still.

If you still don’t understand the concept of these camps, here’s an AUCian and an ex-member of these camps explaining what they’re about.