I.D. cards of members of the Ministry of the Interior police force that anti-government protesters say they confiscated from pro-Mubarek militias they captured - along with weapons - during violent clashes Wednesday night.Sandro Contenta
CAIRO—When the overnight battle for Tahrir Square was won, among the prized spoils of war were a dozen identity cards belonging to state security forces and members of President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party.
The anti-Mubarak protesters holding the square need no more proof. As far as they’re concerned, the bloody assault that left eight people dead and hundreds wounded Thursday was orchestrated by Egyptian authorities.
“We caught a lot of policemen,” said Hanni Midhet, 27, who survived the battle that raged for 15 hours near the Egyptian Museum. “Turning Egyptian against Egyptian is the president’s last card.”
At daybreak, after anti-regime demonstrators had fought off the assault with stones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire, the victors were still capturing opponents and stripping them of their identity cards. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ossama Kamel Mohammed was stomped and punched by dozens of frenzied men, despite attempts by others to save him. He was dragged half-naked and barely conscious to a shop across the square, where his hands were bound by plastic ties. Then he was interrogated.
“I’m not going to tell you what I was doing here,” Mohammed said, scarcely able to hold up his head. “But I work for the ministry of the interior.”
Then Mohammed’s cellphone rang. His interrogator answered, pretending to be Mohammed. There was a brief conversation before the interrogator leaned over to the battered man: “It’s the ministry of the interior,” he whispered. “They want the password.”
His identity card describes Mohammed as a member of the “secret police” in Tanta, a city outside of Cairo.
In an interview with ABC yesterday, Mubarak insisted his government was not responsible for the violence.
“I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other,” he said.
Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 30 years, dismissed demands to resign immediately, despite 10 days of protests that have shut down large chunks of the economy and turned downtown Cairo into a war zone.
“If I resign today, there will be chaos,” Mubarak said.
After hundreds of thousands marched in protest across the country Tuesday, he announced he would step down in September.
“I am fed up. After 62 years of public service, I have had enough. I want to go,” he said Thursday, from his heavily guarded palace in Cairo.
That is the stated destination for the protesters on Friday, when they have called for another huge rally after midday prayers.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq also denied his government was behind the attack on the Tahrir protesters.
Still, he apologized for the violence, which began when Mubarak supporters attacked opponents of the regime, and pledged to catch its ringleaders.
Egypt’s vice-president, Omar Suleiman, seemed to blame foreign journalists. This on a day when they were systematically attacked. They were beaten by Mubarak-supporting thugs, had equipment confiscated by security officials, or were rounded up by the military.
“When there are demonstrations of this size, there will be foreigners who come and take advantage and they have an agenda to raise the energy of the protesters,” Suleiman said in an interview on state television.
But in a surreal statement, he said the assault by Mubarak supporters was the result of a “conspiracy.”
He added: “We should find out who was pulling the strings, and they will be strictly and fiercely penalized.”
What both Suleiman and Shafiq sidestepped are the obvious questions: Where were the ministry of the interior’s 450,000 police and paramilitary forces when the 15-hour-long battle broke out? They certainly weren’t in uniform trying to keep public order. Could many of them have been storming the barricades instead?
And what of Egypt’s 450,000-strong military? Why were there so few soldiers stationed around Tahrir Square, doing nothing to separate the rival factions until the dust settled at daybreak Thursday?
Suleiman suggested police forces have suddenly become deficient, and the army incompetent.
Without elaborating, he said the police had “lost some of its capabilities.” And he said the army — the main force on the streets of the capital — was struggling to fill the void. It is “shouldering duties that are new to it, enforcing the curfew and protecting citizens from thuggery and outlaws,” he said. “It’s a huge burden on the armed forces to carry out a police role that it didn’t have before.”
At the same time, Egyptian prosecutors issued travel bans and froze the bank accounts of leading ruling party figures, including former interior minister Habib El Adly, reviled by many Egyptians as a key architect of the police state.
It may suggest a settling of accounts within the ruling elite, who in this end of regime period are making examples of some of their more hated members.
To the people who for years did El Adly’s dirty work, it suggests they too will be targeted by a new regime. So they’re fighting like mad to preserve the old one, says Abdallah Al Ashaal, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs.
“Those who benefited from the regime are now giving the regime what it is owed,” said Ashaal, adding the payment is in the form of a brutal counter-revolution on the streets.
“Even if Mubarak is intending to leave, they don’t want to surrender. They would be tried because they are criminals. So I think we have a very big fight ahead of us,” Ashaal said in an interview.
Ashaal, deputy foreign minister between 1998 and 2003, is convinced the orders came from the top.
“The regime wants to punish the people because they dared to say, ‘No more,’” he said.
Source here.
CAIRO—When the overnight battle for Tahrir Square was won, among the prized spoils of war were a dozen identity cards belonging to state security forces and members of President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party.
The anti-Mubarak protesters holding the square need no more proof. As far as they’re concerned, the bloody assault that left eight people dead and hundreds wounded Thursday was orchestrated by Egyptian authorities.
“We caught a lot of policemen,” said Hanni Midhet, 27, who survived the battle that raged for 15 hours near the Egyptian Museum. “Turning Egyptian against Egyptian is the president’s last card.”
At daybreak, after anti-regime demonstrators had fought off the assault with stones, Molotov cocktails and gunfire, the victors were still capturing opponents and stripping them of their identity cards. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ossama Kamel Mohammed was stomped and punched by dozens of frenzied men, despite attempts by others to save him. He was dragged half-naked and barely conscious to a shop across the square, where his hands were bound by plastic ties. Then he was interrogated.
“I’m not going to tell you what I was doing here,” Mohammed said, scarcely able to hold up his head. “But I work for the ministry of the interior.”
Then Mohammed’s cellphone rang. His interrogator answered, pretending to be Mohammed. There was a brief conversation before the interrogator leaned over to the battered man: “It’s the ministry of the interior,” he whispered. “They want the password.”
His identity card describes Mohammed as a member of the “secret police” in Tanta, a city outside of Cairo.
In an interview with ABC yesterday, Mubarak insisted his government was not responsible for the violence.“I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other,” he said.
Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 30 years, dismissed demands to resign immediately, despite 10 days of protests that have shut down large chunks of the economy and turned downtown Cairo into a war zone.
“If I resign today, there will be chaos,” Mubarak said.
After hundreds of thousands marched in protest across the country Tuesday, he announced he would step down in September.
“I am fed up. After 62 years of public service, I have had enough. I want to go,” he said Thursday, from his heavily guarded palace in Cairo.
That is the stated destination for the protesters on Friday, when they have called for another huge rally after midday prayers.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq also denied his government was behind the attack on the Tahrir protesters.
Still, he apologized for the violence, which began when Mubarak supporters attacked opponents of the regime, and pledged to catch its ringleaders.
Egypt’s vice-president, Omar Suleiman, seemed to blame foreign journalists. This on a day when they were systematically attacked. They were beaten by Mubarak-supporting thugs, had equipment confiscated by security officials, or were rounded up by the military.
“When there are demonstrations of this size, there will be foreigners who come and take advantage and they have an agenda to raise the energy of the protesters,” Suleiman said in an interview on state television.
But in a surreal statement, he said the assault by Mubarak supporters was the result of a “conspiracy.”
He added: “We should find out who was pulling the strings, and they will be strictly and fiercely penalized.”
What both Suleiman and Shafiq sidestepped are the obvious questions: Where were the ministry of the interior’s 450,000 police and paramilitary forces when the 15-hour-long battle broke out? They certainly weren’t in uniform trying to keep public order. Could many of them have been storming the barricades instead?
And what of Egypt’s 450,000-strong military? Why were there so few soldiers stationed around Tahrir Square, doing nothing to separate the rival factions until the dust settled at daybreak Thursday?
Suleiman suggested police forces have suddenly become deficient, and the army incompetent.
Without elaborating, he said the police had “lost some of its capabilities.” And he said the army — the main force on the streets of the capital — was struggling to fill the void. It is “shouldering duties that are new to it, enforcing the curfew and protecting citizens from thuggery and outlaws,” he said. “It’s a huge burden on the armed forces to carry out a police role that it didn’t have before.”
At the same time, Egyptian prosecutors issued travel bans and froze the bank accounts of leading ruling party figures, including former interior minister Habib El Adly, reviled by many Egyptians as a key architect of the police state.
It may suggest a settling of accounts within the ruling elite, who in this end of regime period are making examples of some of their more hated members.
To the people who for years did El Adly’s dirty work, it suggests they too will be targeted by a new regime. So they’re fighting like mad to preserve the old one, says Abdallah Al Ashaal, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs.
“Those who benefited from the regime are now giving the regime what it is owed,” said Ashaal, adding the payment is in the form of a brutal counter-revolution on the streets.
“Even if Mubarak is intending to leave, they don’t want to surrender. They would be tried because they are criminals. So I think we have a very big fight ahead of us,” Ashaal said in an interview.
Ashaal, deputy foreign minister between 1998 and 2003, is convinced the orders came from the top.
“The regime wants to punish the people because they dared to say, ‘No more,’” he said.
Source here.
