A spokesperson for the northern Sinai tribes called on the government to change the provincial security directors “who are engaged in continuous violent practices against the Sinai Bedouins,” and demanded the release of the detained tribal youth, reports Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Sheikh Muhammad Attia Abu Rawas, who was chosen recently by the tribes as a spokesman according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, named in specific Police Brigadier Generals Essam Amer, the head of the provincial State Security office, Sami Lutfi, the head of General Security and his deputy Essam Fahmi, in addition to Ali Mekheimar, the head of Criminal Investigations, Reda Sweilam, the head of the provincial Investigations, as reported by the paper.
When I travelled to Northern Sinai last fall, I heard stories of torture by leftist activists and Taba bombings suspects. And I find it bloody ludicrous that the Bedouins who lived for centuries roaming the peninsula north and south, and traveling east and west canNOT move anywhere since the “liberation” without permission from the Mukhabarat, and they are hardly welcomed as workers or even visitors in Mubarak’s imaginary Riviera in the south.
Photographer Amr Abdallah traveled to Sinai, and took some photos.