Media Releases

University of Toronto Statement regarding Tarek Loubani and John Greyson

August 26, 2013

TORONTO, ON — Amidst the chaos and con­flict in Egypt over the last weeks, we have seen trag­ic loss of life and grow­ing uncer­tain­ty about the long-term prospects for a sta­ble democ­ra­cy in that nation.  This sit­u­a­tion has recent­ly come clos­er to home for those who work in Ontario’s uni­ver­si­ties.  In par­tic­u­lar, mem­bers of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to com­mu­ni­ty have learned with con­cern of the arrest with­out charges and sub­se­quent impris­on­ment of two Ontario aca­d­e­mics in Cairo. Tarek Loubani is an Emer­gency Med­i­cine physi­cian and pro­fes­sor at West­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, and John Greyson is a film­mak­er who teach­es film stud­ies at York Uni­ver­si­ty and has been pur­su­ing a PhD at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. The absence of charges and lack of any hear­ing or tri­al date has gen­er­at­ed mount­ing alarm about their sit­u­a­tion.  The Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to  has writ­ten to the Egypt­ian ambas­sador to express these con­cerns for the wel­fare of Loubani and Greyson, and to con­vey our dis­ap­point­ment that the tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment has detained Cana­di­an cit­i­zens – among oth­ers – with­out any charges or time-table for judi­cial recourse.