Americans Abroad

Yesterday, three American students were arrested in Cairo for participating in riots that have to date killed 38. A spokesman at the justice ministry claims that the three were throwing Molotov cocktails from the top of an American University in Cairo building near Tahrir Square. The three are studying in Egypt this semester at the AUC as part of their respective home universities’ study abroad programs.

“They’re 19-year-old political tourists in a foreign fight,” writes Martin Kramer, Wexler-Fromer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Does AUC have a policy prohibiting US students from demonstrating? If not, why not?”