“Public disaffection with the government appears to have reached an all-time high,” reports IPS.
And speaking of public anger, I’ve just received news that citizens have set a police car on fire after it hit a woman in the town of Samalut.
UPDATE: It’s not a car accident as reported initially. It’s worse!
Around 100 Egyptians set fire to a police truck on a main road in central Egypt on Thursday after a pregnant woman died during a police raid on her house, police sources said.
Mervat Abdel Salam Abdel Fattah, 32, stood in the way of police looking for her brother in a case of theft in the town of Samalut, 200 km (120 miles) south of Cairo, they said.
A policeman hit her with the butt of his pistol and she fell and died, they added.
In revenge friends and relatives attacked and set fire to a police pickup truck on the road from Cairo to the southern city of Assiut. A brigadier was taken to hospital with injuries from a beating and most of the policemen fled, they said.
The pigs are of course denying any wrongdoing, claiming:
The woman was pushed to the ground by officers when she would not let them enter her home to look for her brother, a suspected thief, police said.
She was in the last stages of pregnancy and died of internal bleeding caused by the fall, police added.
UPDATE: Despite police intimidation, the HMLC lawyers managed to meet with Mervat’s family.