APAssociated Press
By
Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press
/
September 18, 2011
CAIRO—A gang
that broke out of prison during the revolution was killing people and
robbing merchants in the town of Abu Teeg. So the chief of detectives
gave his officers their orders: Do nothing.
"The
revolution let them out, so let the people have a taste of their
revolution," he said, according to two of the seven officers at the
meeting, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals.
For
the next four months, residents in the southern Egyptian town say, they
appealed repeatedly for help, but were rebuffed by a police force still
bitter about its humiliation in the uprising that ended President Hosni
Mubarak's rule. The gang went on to kill at least seven people,
officials and residents believe.
The
Egyptian police force has long been hated for its corruption and use of
torture, and many Egyptians saw the downfall of the police state as a
critical goal of their 18-day uprising.
But
current and former officers say some members of the force are thwarting
any attempt at change, and in many cases are avenging their fall from
power by refusing to do their jobs.
These
alleged sanctions are blamed for a surge in crime. According to
Interior Ministry figures, there were 36 armed robberies nationwide in
January but the figure rose sharply to 420 in July; murders went from 44
to 166, kidnappings from three to 42.
Midlevel
officers have "an attitude that borders on mutiny," says Lt. Col.
Mohammed Mahfouz, who left the force in late 2009 and now advocates
reform.
Their attitude, he
told The Associated Press, is that "Egyptians must be taught a lesson
before the police come back to the streets. They want people to suffer
without effective policing so they realize the prestige of the state is a
red line that must not be crossed again."
As
far back as the 1952 coup that put the military in power, the police
force, now one million-strong, has been a sworn enemy of reform and its
advocates.
From street cops
to agents of the daunting State Security Agency, policemen were
untouchable and intimidation kept order on the streets. Talking back to a
policeman could earn a slap on the head or worse. In 2006, in an
incident that was filmed and posted on YouTube, a Cairo minibus driver
who annoyed an officer was dragged to a station and sodomized with a
wooden pole.
Torture was a
basic investigative tool. If a car was stolen, police would often round
up suspects and beat them until someone confessed. Bribery was common.
Rarely was a policeman investigated, much less prosecuted.
And
then there was the State Security Agency, an arm of the police that
operated at the political level but was seen by the public as just
another instrument of police oppression.
The agency was
involved in election-rigging to keep the ruling party's in power. It
weighed in on the running of universities, trade unions, the media, and
even had the final word on appointments of Cabinet ministers, governors
and ambassadors.
It also
suppressed and spied on the opposition. After Kareem el-Behery, a
27-year-old blogger, helped organize a protest against corruption in
April 2008, he was arrested, taken to a basement in a State Security
compound and tortured through the night, he said.
It
was the casualness of the scene that stunned him, he said. He recalled
how his tormenter listened to recordings of recitations from the Quran,
Islam's holy book, even as he inflicted electric shocks, then took a
prayer break.
"How can you do this to me while listening to the Quran, and then just go and pray?" el-Behery says he asked the officer.
"I'll
go and give God what I owe him, then I'll come back and give you what
you deserve," the officer replied. "You think I'm an infidel like you?"
The anti-Mubarak uprising shattered the fear barrier.
On
Jan. 28, the deadliest day, tens of thousands of protesters withstood
water cannons, tear gas and gunfire until overwhelmed police broke and
ran.
The next dramatic move
came in March, when protesters stormed the main Cairo headquarters and
several branch offices of the State Security Agency, aiming to stop the
shredding and burning of secret documents.
"It was sweet revenge for all those who have been tortured there over the years," said el-Behery, who was among the protesters.
Since then, momentum has faltered.
Interior
Minister Mansour el-Issawi, who heads the police, dissolved the State
Security Agency and replaced it with a new body called the National
Security Authority, which he vowed would not be involved in politics.
However, it has kept on nearly half the staff of the outgoing agency.
Protesters
have handed back most of the documents they seized lest they embarrass
the victims of State Security's spying. There has been no public airing
of the agency's abuses since.
Prosecutors
have put 140 police officers on trial for killing protesters during the
uprising, and in July, el-Issawi sacked 700 senior officers from the
various police branches, including the State Security Agency and the
notorious Criminal Investigation Department, but most of them were near
retirement anyway.
Many
State Security officers whom activists and victims have identified as
being involved in torture have simply been transferred to other posts.
El-Issawi says their experience is still needed.
He acknowledges that some police were reluctant to shoulder their duties, but denies it's a conspiracy.
He
also says police are wary of acting to restore order, because some of
those being prosecuted for using lethal force did so to fend off
dangerous mobs.
"People who were shot
dead while trying to storm police stations are counted as 'martyrs'
just like the protesters killed in cold blood," el-Issawi complained in a
TV interview.
One group,
the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, has put forward a detailed
proposal for reform, starting with a widespread investigation of
officers suspected of abuses.
It
calls for monitoring police stations for abuses and appointing a
civilian as interior minister instead of a career police officer. It
says police should get better salaries and crime-fighting technology to
blunt the efficacy of bribes and beatings.
So far, the group says, the ministry has shown no interest.
"Many
in the police force are filled with a desire for revenge," said the
group's head, Hossam Bahgat. "They are convinced that for them to be an
effective police force again, fear of the police must be reinstalled in
society."
Mahfouz, the
former officer, keeps in touch with his colleagues on the force and says
most police know no way other than intimidation. "They can only work in
a climate that does not respect human rights."
Lt.
Col. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, a serving officer who also heads a
reformist group, says that even though Mubarak is ousted and on trial,
senior officers have been helping pro-Mubarak businessmen hire thugs who
attack pro-democracy demonstrators. The charge, in many variations, has
been widely reported by the media and sometimes repeated by officials,
but no investigation is known to have taken place.
In
Abu Teeg, a farming and trading town of 300,000 people some 400
kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo, the five escaped criminals went
on a rampage for months. They smuggled drugs and weapons, carried out
robberies and settled old blood feuds.
Brig.
Mitwali Abdou, who headed Assiut Province's Criminal Investigations
Division at the time, denies the charge that he told the seven district
chiefs of his division at the Feb. 15 meeting in his office not to
pursue the criminals.
Speaking to the AP, Abdou praised the anti-Mubarak uprising, saying "the revolution is a glorious thing."
One
of the two officers who described the meeting, a major, said he opposed
the order but did not speak up, since that would have meant "swimming
against the current."
"It is a decision that saddened me, a decision whose consequences we'll have to live with for years to come," the major told AP.
Desperate
residents went to police in Abu Teeg and the nearby provincial capital
Assiut, but each time were told to just protect themselves, said a local
resident, Younis Darweesh.
Eventually, it was the army that took action, capturing two of the five criminals.
Abdou
has been moved to the post of general inspector in October 6 Province,
near Cairo. Three of the seven district chiefs at the Feb. 15 meeting
have been transferred to the central police headquarters in Assiut
following repeated complaints from residents that they were using
criminals and thugs to protect police stations.
Abdel-Rahman,
the officer and reformist, said the police force's "job has been to
protect the (Mubarak) regime, not the people. ... Only a genuine purge
of the force will bring reconciliation between the people and the
police."
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reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
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