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发帖数: 4825 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/middleeast/13egypt.html
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 12, 2011
Crime Wave in Egypt Has People Afraid, Even the Police
Abdel Hamid Eid/European Pressphoto Agency
Coptic Christians, left, and Muslims threw stones at each other during
clashes in Cairo last weekend.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 12, 2011
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CAIRO — 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.
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“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!’ ”
Crime Wave in Egypt Has People Afraid, Even the Police
Published: May 12, 2011
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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.
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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. | c******k
发帖数: 8998 | | l*******n
发帖数: 1972 | | S******8
发帖数: 24594 | | c******o
发帖数: 4751 | 5 我知道我政治错误，可是不知道为啥，看到这个我会想起以前南非多好一个国家，后来
大家都解放了平等了，现在搞的叫啥
阿。。。 | d*****t
发帖数: 7903 | 6 人家都金砖了，你还想怎么样啊！怒。。。
【在 c******o 的大作中提到】
: 我知道我政治错误，可是不知道为啥，看到这个我会想起以前南非多好一个国家，后来
: 大家都解放了平等了，现在搞的叫啥
: 阿。。。
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