Monday, March 07, 2011

Men in plain clothes armed with swords and petrol bombs attacked protesters in Cairo Sunday night during a demonstration demanding reform of security services hours after new ministers of the interior, foreign affairs and justice were announced in a Cabinet reshuffle.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, in Egypt, affirmed his country’s commitment to Egypt and delivered a letter from President Nicholas Sarkozy to Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
In the Cabinet reshuffle, Nabil Elaraby replaced Ahmad Aboul Gheit as foreign minister; Mansour al-Essawy became Egypt’s new interior minister and Mohammad al-Guindy was appointed justice minister.

Dozens of men wielding knives and machetes and hurling bricks and petrol bombs confronted protesters outside the headquarters of Egypt’s state security, a force whose abuses fueled an uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, they said.

It appeared to be the first time armed men in plain clothes had deployed in force against reform activists in central Cairo since Mubarak was forced to step down and hand power to the military. 
Egyptian soldiers, on the streets since the start of the uprising, fired into the air for several minutes to disperse the protesters. As they ran, the protesters were confronted by men they described as thugs. The state news agency said the demonstrators were trying to break into the building.

Critics of the state security apparatus – a branch of the Interior Ministry – say it functions as a domestic spy agency. Its networks penetrate deep into society, monitoring citizens and tapping phone lines.
In the last two days, protesters have broken into 11 offices belonging to the state security apparatus across the country, seizing documents which they feared would be destroyed by officers to cover up abuses perpetrated by the force.

“The army started firing in the air to disperse us,” said Mohammad Fahmy. “We tried to run away but we were met by 200 thugs in plain clothes carrying sharp weapons on the other side,” he said, putting the number of protesters at 2,000. Fahmy said there were 15 injuries, none of them serious.
Witnesses said Saturday police were burning secret documents that could incriminate security officials. Police blamed protesters for the fires.

Protesters have said they found security files on reformist Mohamed ElBaradei, Google executive Wael Ghonim and the Muslim Brotherhood. Transcripts of recorded phone conversations of other opposition figures were also found.

The ruling military council warned against publication of documents taken from state security offices and urged their return.

Redeploying the police force and building public confidence in the internal security forces is one of the main challenges confronting a new government unveiled Sunday.

New Foreign Minister Elaraby was Egypt’s U.N. representative in the 1990s and a former International Court of Justice judge. He was critical of the crackdown on the uprising. He is remembered for expressing reservations about the Camp David peace treaty with Israel which he helped to negotiate, Mustapha Kamal al-Sayyid, a political scientist told Reuters.

New Interior Minister Mansour Essawy vowed to work to improve the image of the police force. “I have spoken of the need to shrink the role of the state security apparatus, so that it is only focused on fighting terrorism and does not intervene with the administrative lives of the average citizen,” the state news agency quoted him as saying.
Essawy was not associated with state security in his former role as a senior Interior Ministry official, Sayyid said. Neither was he seen as part of the inner circle of Habib al-Adli, who held the post for 13 years. “Essawy is known for fighting corruption,” Sayyid said.

Guindy, the new justice minister, said he was looking forward to fighting corruption and overseeing presidential and parliamentary elections which will be managed by the judiciary, according to new constitutional reforms.
Essam Sharaf, the prime minister, met the new ministers Sunday. The new Cabinet has yet to be approved by the Supreme Armed Forces Council.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Juppe, speaking to the French community in Egypt, said his visit to Cairo shows “France’s commitment in the face of extraordinary upheavals” in the Arab world. Juppe said he told Tantawi that France “trusts” the military council to “lead the process of political transition” in Egypt.

A number of ministers who served under Mubarak are facing legal investigation on corruption charges. Sameh Fahmy, the former oil minister, became the latest former official to be banned from leaving the country pending investigations of charges of financial violations, the Cabinet’s Facebook page said. – Agencies