Tag: pigs

Police crack down on Cinema Metro demo

Posted on By 3arabawy

I’m receiving news that Police is cracking down on the Cinema Metro demo. Plainclothes security agents are dispersing protesters and people away.

Five people, I heard, have been arrested including activist Nadia Mabrouk, Waleed Salah, a student from the AUC named Dina, a foreign journalist and an unnamed protester.

The police also assaulted Reuters photographer Nasser Nouri, and smashed his camera battery.
A group of women protesters, including anti-torture activist Dr. Magda Adly, are cornered now inside the Excelsior Cafe, next to Cinema Metro.

UPDATE: Those who were under siege in the Excelsior Cafe have managed to leave, and they are on their way to the Press Syndicate. Talaat Harb is full of baltaggiya (plainclothes thugs used by the police).
UPDATE: The Press Syndicate is under siege by Central Security Forces, plainclothes thugs.

UPDATE: It seems all those kidnapped by the police were released, except for Kefaya activists Nadia Mabrouk and her fiance Waleed Salah who are spending the night in Qasr el-Nil Police Station, and will be transferred to the prosecutor in the morning on charges of possessing leaflets of anti-regime inflammatory content, disturbing public order, etc.

I was told by their lawyer that Nadia was beaten up during the arrest, and a State Security officer kept on hitting her several times against the metal stair steps of the Prison Truck. Later she was greeted with a slap on the face at Qasr el-Nil Police Station (where Kefaya activist Muhammad el-Sharqawi was brutally tortured and sexually abused last May), before she was thrown to al-takhsheeba.

Here are two press reports on the demo, from The Daily Star Egypt and the New York Times.

UPDATE: Reporters Without Borders denounced the police crackdown on journalists covering the protest.

Clashes at Ain Shams University

Posted on By 3arabawy

I don’t have details yet, but it seems for the second day on the row, Ain Shams University’s campus in Abbassiya was the scene of clashes between the Free Student Union activists and those who belong to the government-appointed official Student Union, backed by criminal thugs who were allowed into campus with wooden sticks and sharp objects. The intimidation campaign is ongoing, while the university’s security personnel are absent from the scene, making sure the crackdown on the FSU to be portrayed as a students vs students affair.

UPDATE: A report by Aziz El-Kaissouni:

Plainclothes security disrupts Egypt student vote

CAIRO, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Plainclothes security men working with the police disrupted elections for unofficial student unions at Cairo’s Ain Shams university on Monday, Muslim Brotherhood and human rights sources said.
A Muslim Brotherhood student activist said the security men, working in large groups without uniforms or insignia, attacked voters and organizers with sticks, knives and bottles.
“They entered campus from the gates, with their sticks and everything, with the knowledge of (university) security,” said activist Muhammad Suleiman, adding that police stood by as students were assaulted.
The Muslim Brotherhood called for elections for “free” student unions throughout Egypt after almost all of their candidates were disqualified from the simultaneous official elections as part of a crackdown on opposition groups.
Suleiman said he and other students came under attack after one of the police officers in charge of campus security identified them by pointing them out in the crowd.
Muhammad Adel, a lawyer with the Egyptian Association for Supporting Democratic Development, said violence broke out in Ain Shams on Sunday as well and two students were seriously injured there. The association monitors elections.
Adel said the turnout at the universities where the unofficial elections are complete has been many times higher than for the official elections. A spokesman for the ministry of the interior declined to comment.
The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s strongest opposition group, despite being banned since 1954. Members elected as independents hold 88 seats in the 454-member parliament, which is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party.
The government controls state universities, which block Islamist candidates at student union elections every year.
The U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch said last month that Egypt had intensified its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood with a new round of arbitrary arrests.

UPDATE: Student Union elections have become a microcosm of national polls outside the campus, writes Karim El-Khashab for Al-Ahram Weekly.

New police brutality video

Posted on By 3arabawy

A new video of Egyptian police brutality has surfaced. The video, posted by blogger DemaghMaK, shows an Egyptian citizen being sexually abused by police officers, while he is screaming for help. I should warn you the video is very DISTURBING.