http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1091/focus.htm
29 March - 4 April 2012
Issue No. 1090
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
The problem lies with the rulers not the ruled'
The present lack of security has led to an unprecedented surge in crime and
serious concerns about the rule of law, Gihan Shahine investigates
It was a typical sunny day in a bustling downtown street, and engineer Mohamed
was visiting a branch of a national bank to renew his visa card. The elegant
façade of the bank hardly indicated that there could be danger lurking behind
its gates. Mohamed had left LE30,000 tucked safely under the driver's seat.
"Nobody knew I had the money, and the bag was carefully hidden so I thought it
would be fine if I left it for a few minutes until I had finished the papers,"
Mohamed recounted sadly.
But that proved to be a miscalculation. Mohamed had hardly gone into the bank
when he heard a security man screaming that a car had been broken into and a
bag stolen.
"I knew the stolen bag was mine," Mohamed said. "The money was all I had, and I
needed it badly."
A shocked Mohamed ran to the nearest police station for help but said that the
officers in charge were "indifferent and apathetic" to his plight. "They said
they couldn't do anything and told me to negotiate with the thieves. The money
was my savings, and there was also a mobile and important documents in the bag."
Mohamed later received an anonymous call from someone who said he had found a
bag thrown onto the side of the Ring Road. "I called the police for help, but
again they advised me to go to meet the caller myself."
"I told the man I was ready to give him part of the money if he agreed to give
it back to me, but the man insisted he was only someone volunteering to return
the bag when he found it had important documents in it. The man swore he was a
sheikh and said he had nothing to do with the theft."
Mohamed is not the only victim of the unprecedented rise in crime that has been
gripping the country since the 25 January Revolution when the police
disappeared from the streets after three days of deadly clashes with protesters
in Cairo and elsewhere. By 28 January last year, a wave of jail breaks had also
hit the country, allowing hundreds of prisoners to flee as hundreds of firearms
were also looted.
More than a year later, almost nothing has been done to return the prisoners to
jail or to re- establish security. Instead, Egypt has become a free-for-all,
where thugs are taking advantage of the absence of the police and any legal
accountability or justice.
The media has been having a field day reporting on the victims of an
unprecedented wave of crime, many of whom have been told at police stations
that they have to take matters into their own hands. The reports corroborate
public suspicions that the police are intentionally allowing chaos to prevail
as an act of revenge for their weakened position following the revolution that
put an end to decades of the police state.
Many of those who have lost vehicles or money to thugs express suspicions that
the police have sometimes even been involved in the crimes. Thieves call on
numbers left at police stations, for example, and although the Cairo Ring Road
has become notorious for violence, the police seem to be doing little to secure
the area.
Many similarly wonder why the police have been able to make arrests in cases
involving well- connected public figures, while ignoring calls by ordinary
citizens. The fact that the police were able to make arrests in the case of an
assault on MP Amr Hamzawy, carried out late at night when the politician was
out driving with his wife the actress Basma, shows that the police can help if
they want to and that the present negligence of the police is "a conspiracy",
in the words of novelist Alaa El-Aswani.
The police are not only "standing by to watch and gloat", he said, but are in
some cases even themselves involved in the crimes.
The police were widely hated by the public before the revolution for their
brutality and abuse of power, which triggered the first sparks of the
revolution. One year later, they are back on the streets in lesser numbers, and
they are not ready to risk their lives for the sake of their duty.
Some people suspect that the police are out for revenge, while others say that
they are just being fearful or apathetic. Some crime victims have reported to
the press that the police have told them that it would be too risky to clamp
down on criminals at the moment because of public hostility to the police.
Police officers are apparently staying at home or doing paperwork, now that
they cannot use the methods they employed under the former Mubarak regime.
Whatever the reasons for their behaviour, armed robberies, car thefts, and a
string of bank lootings and kidnappings are leading to a surge in crime. In the
absence of security and the rule of law, with the culprits mostly going
unpunished, crimes are being more and more blatantly committed in broad
daylight and in busy areas.
Only a few weeks ago, an Egyptian woman working for the United Nations as a
consultant was shot dead while driving through a busy street in Mohandessin.
Nermine Khalil was driving to a medical lab where she also worked when she was
shot by unidentified gunmen passing in another car. No one has been arrested.
It is unclear whether Gomaa was personally targeted, or whether she was
randomly killed. But the fact that such crimes are now committed in broad
daylight is symptomatic of the current absence of the rule of law.
The wave of robberies and attacks has also targeted public figures.
Presidential hopeful Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh was recently subjected to armed
robbery on the Ring Road. Abdel-Fotouh told the daily independent Al-Masry
Al-Youm that he suspected that "the ousted president and his thugs" were behind
the recent crime spree. "The lack of security is intentional because it could
easily be controlled," Abul-Fotouh said.
Many would agree with him that the authorities managed to maintain security
during the parliamentary and Shura Council elections, which for the first time
in decades did not witness any crime or any of the chaos that marred elections
under the former regime.
"If the authorities could manage to maintain security during the difficult days
of the elections, why can't they provide it on normal days," Abul-Fotouh asked.
While Abul-Fotouh suspects remnants of the former regime of being the main
culprits behind the increasingly state of insecurity, he insists that it
remains in the hands of the authorities to stop it.
Sociologist Samir Naim also insists that "in all the revolutions in human
history there have been counter-revolutionary forces keen to prove that the
revolution would lead to disruption and the destruction of the state." Such
forces have been willing to do whatever is necessary to dishonour the
revolutionaries and picture them as thugs or agents of foreign forces who want
to occupy or exploit the country and to spread chaos and instability, he says.
What happened in Egypt, Naim said, is that counter-revolutionary forces led by
Mubarak regime officials who still occupy the highest ranks in Egypt started
counter-revolutionary attacks immediately after the revolution. "In less than a
month, revolutionary youths were arrested and demonstrations were dispersed by
force, while in fewer than two months, female revolutionaries were arrested and
forced to undergo virginity tests."
Thugs were encouraged to commit crimes against property and persons all over
the country "with the consent of the ruling regime -- that is, the military, as
well as the higher ranks of the police," Naim continued. In the meantime, the
police withdrawal has encouraged "latent criminals," those who have the
tendency to commit crimes but are usually too afraid of the police, to commit
crimes since they know they will not be punished.
Naim deplores the gloomy picture of a society torn between two conflicting
minority power- groups, namely the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF) supported by the police, some wealthy businessmen and remnants of the
former regime, on the one hand, and the revolutionary forces on the other.
These groups, Naim said, are now competing to win over the silent majority of
the Egyptian people.
"So far, the ruling minority seems to be winning the competition since they are
the ones who own the state media and have the power and money needed to hire
thugs to scare the public, spread chaos, scare tourists away and deliver deadly
blows to the economy. Meanwhile, they are also preoccupying people with
apolitical issues related to bread and the scarcity of fuel."
Many people now even curse the revolution for being responsible for the
difficulties they are suffering, and some even yearn for the Mubarak regime,
under which bread and security at least were available.
Naim does not blame people for these reactions, commenting that "it is a
well-known fact in psychology that intense emotions, be they fear or happiness,
can impede people's critical and logical thinking abilities and increase their
suggestibility. This can make them believe whatever is said to them," he said.
"It is for this reason that the counter-revolutionary forces have been so keen
to spread fear and chaos."
The sociologist does not blame young policemen for not doing an honest day's
work either, since "they were ordered by their commanders to withdraw and let
chaos prevail." The fact that the police are hated by the public may also be a
reason why they are acting so negatively. "They are human beings, after all,"
Naim commented, though for him "the main issue remains the fact that there is
no political will to end this state of chaos."
Mohamed Zarie, director of the Egyptian Human Rights Association for the
Assistance of Prisoners, agrees. "When chaos and crime prevail, the ordinary
man on the street clings to the ruling military council and even begs it to
stay in power for fear of further chaos," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The more
this state of insecurity prevails, the better chances the military council has
to remain in power."
The police have also been discouraged by the loss of the benefits they used to
enjoy under the former regime. According to Zarie, the police thrived under
Mubarak's police state, when they used to provide security to the ruling
National Democratic Party and supported the transfer of power to Gamal Mubarak,
son of the former president.
"Now that their benefits are gone, and the bribes the police used to get to
secure the lives of members of the former regime have disappeared, the police
do not have the incentive to risk their lives for the salaries they get at the
end of the month," Zarie said. "Young policemen feel powerless, and their
target now is simply to protect police stations against looters."
He speculated that the police will not really return to the streets until
police officers charged in cases of killing demonstrators during the 25 January
Revolution are acquitted, and as the lawyer of the families of 550 of those
killed he says that there is a political will in the regime to try to ensure
that security men and former regime officials reportedly involved in killing
demonstrators are acquitted.
"The officers charged were allowed to remain in their posts during the
investigations, and this gave them the opportunity to burn any documents that
could be used against them in court," Zarie told the Weekly.
"This lack of documentation, and the fact that some judges have been pressured
to acquit those involved in the killings, or are personally convinced that
those present at the police stations were thugs and not martyrs, has resulted
in the fact that no one has been charged for the killing of demonstrators
nationwide."
More than 800 people were killed during the revolution, and 11,000 were
wounded. Violence against protesters has continued in the year since then, with
hundreds more killed and thousands arbitrarily detained. It remains unclear
whether the killers have been members of the security forces, or whether they
have been thugs hired by remnants of the former regime with the aim of
spreading chaos. Whatever the case, there has been almost no accountability
levied on the police, soldiers, or thugs involved, and only one low-ranking
police officer has been convicted of playing a role in the year- long crackdown.
"Nothing is happening, nothing whatsoever," said Nashwa Abdel-Tawab, widow of
Al-Azhar sheikh Emad Effat, who was shot dead during a sit-in in Cairo.
According to Abdel-Tawab, none of the families of the martyrs have been
summoned for testimony. She volunteered with the testimonies she had received
from witnesses and mobile-phone video recordings, but the investigators were
"too apathetic to take any of them seriously".
"It is all a farce," she said. "There has been no serious investigation of the
killings. Everything has been fake and bureaucratic."
"The investigators have provided their own witnesses, who have given testimony
that contradicts that of the demonstrators who were actually there at the
time." Such testimony has been "aimed at showing that the security forces had
nothing to do with the killings, which is too naïve to be true," she said.
Lawyer Nasser Amin, who works for the International Criminal Court,
corroborated these statements, saying that "every time any legal expert or
lawyer for the families asks about the results of the investigations, we do not
get an accurate answer. It is always either that 'investigations are still
going on and we cannot announce anything,' or 'the general prosecution will
announce everything to the public at the right time,'" Amin told Al-Masry
Al-Youm. "The truth is that nothing is really happening regarding the
investigations."
Like many of the families of the martyrs, however, Abdel-Tawab has sworn she
will not give up. "We owe it to the martyrs and their children that the
culprits do not get away with it," she insisted.
But many human rights activists insist that success remains a remote
possibility in the absence of any political will to punish the perpetrators of
crimes against the demonstrators and see that justice is done. "The
investigations are feeble, and the documents have been destroyed, and there is
no way for the martyrs to get justice," a pessimistic Zarie said.
While human rights activists say that 12,000 civilians have been summoned
before military courts since the Revolution, the trials of leading figures of
the former regime and of the ousted former president himself have been dragging
on for months and are now widely viewed as farcical since they focus on minor
charges, while ignoring more serious crimes.
However, Zarie speculates that there is serious political will to charge the
former president and "all those who acted to transfer power to the former
president's son."
"The trials, albeit focusing on minor issues, are serious, and they will
probably lead to the imprisonment of those who were at the helm of the former
regime," Zarie maintained, though this is not the same as saying that justice
is being done. "The point is that those currently in power were against the
transfer of power to the former president's son, though they were not against
the regime itself," he explained.
"Those who were at the top of the former regime will thus receive punishment to
appease public opinion: in other words, they will act as scapegoats for the
regime to continue despite the fall of its head."
It is this perceived lack of justice, together with the absence of the rule of
law, that has led to a vicious circle of crimes in which the relatives of the
victims decide to take matters into their own hands. Relatives of people killed
have tracked down the criminals and killed them out of revenge, for example,
with a recent case seeing the relatives of a man killed in a car theft in
Sharqiya tracking down one of those responsible and lynching him in the town of
Abu Hammad. News reports said that the body was then burned as it hung from a
lamp post.
The present spike in crime has not been the only symptom of the present absence
of the rule of law. Other incidents have included protesting against police
negligence by blocking railway tracks and highways, causing traffic and train
delays. Strikes for better pay, sometimes including stopping traffic and
blocking railways and highways, have become recurrent.
Cairo itself seems to have become a kind of free-for-all for all manner of
violations, including street vendors, cafes and double- and triple- parked cars
blocking the capital's already congested streets. Such violations are sometimes
even committed in the presence of policemen who have shied away from
confrontation and have mostly disappearing after nightfall in many parts of the
city.
Naim insists that such incidents are the normal by-products of revolutionary
change. "Those going on strike or blocking roads are desperate people who have
tried all legal means to get their rights. The problem is with the government,
which has failed to provide for people's basic needs and not with the people or
the revolution."
"The silent majority of Egyptians, who have already broken the barrier of fear
and silence, realises that the problem lies with the rulers, not the ruled."
"Egyptians who inspired the world with their peaceful protest on 25 January,
2011, proving that they were capable of peaceful change, have shown their
political maturity. People will soon realise that the current chaos has been
produced by the counter-revolutionary forces and that it is not the product of
the revolution or of undisciplined attitudes or misconduct."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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