Tear gas fired as Egyptian Islamists target security HQ
Friday, 3 May 2013
Islamist protesters shout slogans and try to damage the main door of the state
security headquarters in Cairo. (Reuters)
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Reuters, Cairo -
Egyptian security forces fired teargas to disperse a small group of hardline
Islamist protesters who were attempting to scale the walls of
the state security headquarters in a Cairo suburb late Thursday night.
Around 2,000 protesters from several Salafi Islamist groups had staged a
protest earlier on Thursday night outside the security headquarters
against what they said was a return to the force’s pre-revolution
methods.
After security forces fired tear gas, the remaining
protesters, some of whom had also attempted to break into a nearby
police officers’ club, left the area.
The protest points to
lingering suspicion harbored by the hardliners about security agencies
used against them by ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and which, they
say, Islamist President Mohamed Mursi has been unable to reform.
The protesters, some waving the black-and-white al Qaeda flag, chanted
slogans against Mursi and accused him of building a security apparatus
no different from the old one.
Earlier, at the height of the
protest, no police presence was visible outside the security
headquarters, where protester store down Interior Ministry flags and
erected several al Qaeda flags and set off fireworks.
A small
group had earlier on Thursday evening attempted to break down a door on
the head quarter’s perimeter but gave up before causing damage to the
door. A Jewish Star of David was drawn by some protesters on the wall’s
perimeter.
The Salafi groups had issued a statement earlier in
the day saying state security organs had returned to “criminal
practices” such as summoning citizens for investigation, threatening the
achievements of the 2011 uprising.
Egypt dissolved the feared
and hated state security apparatus, which had been used by Mubarak’s
administration to crush political opposition, including Islamists who
were repressed under the old guard, the month after he was toppled.
It was replaced by a new National Security Force, which the Interior
Ministry promised would serve the nation without interfering in the
lives of citizens or their right to exercise their political views.
The protesters had marched from a nearby mosque after evening prayers. Some
chanted to onlookers in apartments on streets clogged by the march
“come down from your houses, state security is Mubarak.”
The
system of law and justice has been a major stumbling block in
post-Mubarak Egypt. A rift between the Islamist rulers and the
judiciary, which Islamists see as controlled by Mubarak loyalists, is
steadily widening amid a broader struggle over the future character of
the country.
Earlier on Thursday, an Egyptian judge referred a
complaint filed by a police spokesman against popular hardline Islamist
cleric Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to the state security prosecution, setting a
hearing for Saturday to begin the investigation.
State
newspaper Al-Ahram reported that the complaint called for Interior
Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to arrest Abu Ismail on charges of “terrorizing police
officers” after Abu Ismail urged his supporters to attend
Thursday’s protest.
The police spokesman’s complaint added that such demonstrations hindered
officers in their work to protect national security.
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