Crime Wave in Egypt Has People Afraid, Even the Police

[Richard]

Three months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, a surging crime wave in post-revolutionary Egypt has emerged as a serious threat to its promised transition to democracy. Businessmen, politicians and human rights activists say they fear that the mounting disorder — from sectarian strife to soccer riots — is hampering a desperately needed economic recovery or, worse, inviting a new authoritarian crackdown.

Transition can be tough.

And so it goes...

Richard

Crime Wave in Egypt Has People Afraid, Even the Police
NYT, 11 May 2011

The neighbors watched helplessly from behind locked doors as an exchange of gunfire rang out at the police station. Then a stream of about 80 prisoners burst through the doors — some clad only in underwear, many brandishing guns, machetes, even a fire extinguisher — as the police fled.

“The police are afraid,” said Mohamed Ismail, 30, a witness. “I am afraid to leave my neighborhood.”

Three months after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, a surging crime wave in post-revolutionary Egypt has emerged as a serious threat to its promised transition to democracy. Businessmen, politicians and human rights activists say they fear that the mounting disorder — from sectarian strife to soccer riots — is hampering a desperately needed economic recovery or, worse, inviting a new authoritarian crackdown.

At least five attempted jailbreaks have been reported in Cairo in the past two weeks, at least three of them successful. Other similar attempts take place “every day,” a senior Interior Ministry official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly.

And newspapers brim with other lurid episodes: the Muslim-Christian riot that raged last weekend with the police on the scene, leaving 12 dead and two churches in flames; a kidnapping for ransom of a grandniece of President Anwar el-Sadat; soccer fans who crashed a field and mauled an opposing team as the police disappeared; a mob attack in an upscale suburb, Maadi, that sent a traffic police officer to the hospital; and the abduction of another officer by Bedouin tribes in the Sinai.

“Things are actually going from bad to worse,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, the former international atomic energy official who is now a presidential candidate. “Where have the police and military gone?”

The answer, in part, is the legacy of the revolution: Public fury at police abuses helped set off the protests, which destroyed many police stations. Now police officers who knew only swagger and brutality are humbled and demoralized.

In an effort to restore confidence after the sectarian riot last weekend, the military council governing the country until elections scheduled for September announced that 190 people involved would be sent to military court, alarming a coalition of human rights advocates.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf emerged from an emergency cabinet meeting to reiterate a pledge he had made before the riots: that the government backs the police in using all legal procedures, “including the use of force,” to defend themselves, their police stations, or places of worship.

It was an extraordinary statement for a prime minister, in part because the police were already expected to do just that. “This may be the first time a government ever had to say that it was fully supporting its police,” said Bahey el-din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. “It is an indication of the seriousness of the problem.”

Many Egyptians, including at least one former police officer, contend that the Egyptian police learned only one way to fight crime: terrorizing suspects.

Now police officers see their former leader, Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption and facing another trial for charges of unlawful killing. Scores of officers are in jail for their role in repressing the protests.

“They were arrogant, and they treated people like pests, so imagine when these pests now rise up, challenge them and humiliate them,” said Mahmoud Qutri, a former Egyptian police officer who wrote a book criticizing the force.

“They feel broken.”

Mr. Hassan, who has spent his career criticizing the police, said he sympathized. Police officers who fought to defend their stations from protesters are in jail, while those who went home to bed are not facing any trial, he said.

“So the police are asking, ‘What is expected of us?’ It is a very logical question, and the problem is they don’t have an answer,” he said, blaming government leaders.

Shopkeepers say the police used to swagger into their stores bluntly demanding goods for just half the price. Now, Mr. Ismail said, the witness to the jailbreak at the police station, the officers who come into his cellphone shop murmur “please” and put the full price on the counter. “The tables have turned,” he said.

The change in public attitudes is equally stunning, said Hisham A. Fahmy, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. “It’s: ‘Talk to me properly! I am a citizen!’ ”

The spike in crime is a remarkable contrast to life under the Mubarak police state, when violent street crime was a relative rarity and few feared to walk alone at night. “Now it is like New York,” said Mr. Fahmy, adding that his group, which advocates for international companies, had been urging military leaders to respond more vigorously.

At a recent soccer match pitting a Cairo team against a Tunisian team, a cordon of police ringed the field until a referee made a call against an Egyptian goalie. Then the police seemed to vanish as a mob of fans assaulted the referee and the visiting team. Five players were injured, two of them hospitalized, and the referee fled the scene.

“When the violence erupted, the police just disappeared,” said Mourad Teyeb, a Tunisian journalist who covered the game. The one policeman he found told him, “I don’t care, I don’t assume any responsibility,” Mr. Teyeb said, adding that he feared for his life until he found refuge hiding in the Egyptian team’s dressing room.

Some see a reactionary conspiracy. “I think it is deliberate,” said Dr. Shady al-Ghazaly Harb, another organizer of the Tahrir Square protests, contending that officials were pulling back in order to invite chaos and a crackdown. “I think there are bigger masterminds at work.”

Officials of the Interior Ministry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the security situation, said the destruction of police stations during the revolution had contributed to the disorder. The remaining stations are overcrowded with prisoners from other facilities. Of the 80 prisoners who escaped in Shobra, 60 have been recaptured, an officer said.

Mansour el-Essawy, the new interior minister, has called the lawlessness an inevitable legacy of the revolution. Of the 24,000 prisoners who escaped during the revolution, 8,400 are still on the run, and 6,600 weapons stolen from government armories have not been recovered, Mr. Essawy said in a recent interview with an Egyptian newspaper, Al Masry Al Youm.

After the revolution, he said, the police justifiably complained of working 16- hour shifts for low pay. Bribery customarily made up for the low compensation, critics say. So the ministry cut back the officers’ hours, and as a result also cut back the number on duty at any time. And the sudden loss of prestige made it harder to recruit. “People are not stepping forward to join the police,” he complained.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/wo...3egypt.html?hp

[The Reaper]

Ah yes.

Blame the public servant. Have the police initiated riots and jailbreaks?

Who is really responsible for these acts of violence?

The overwhelmed police, or a group which has learned that mob violence is an acceptable alternative to the process?

TR

[longrange1947]

This is where the strict muslim codes will step in and promise peace in our time. Of course they think that Egypt was held by a dictatorship before, just wait for the religious police to take over.

[mark46th]

Wait until the Egyptian Military stands to lose their cash cow....

[T-Rock]

“…just wait for the religious police to take over.”

I think that’s why this lady fled to America after her friends were killed…

Welcome to America Mrs. Farahat : http://kitmantv.blogspot.com/2012/03...nder-fire.html