Egypt names new interior minister

Appointment comes after protesters storm state security buildings claiming that secret documents are being destroyed.

06 Mar 2011

Egypt's prime minister has appointed a new interior minister in a further sign that ousted president Hosni Mubarak's old guard are being removed from the cabinet.

Prime minister Essam Sharaf named General Mansour El Essawi to the post on Sunday according to a post on the Facebook page of the prime minister's office.

The prime minister is also expected to name former judge Nabil El Arabi as the new foreign minister - though this has not yet been confirmed.

The new appointments come after Egyptian protesters stormed several state security buildings in Cairo and Alexandria on Saturday, seizing documents and attempting to retrieve files kept on alleged human rights abuses in the country.

Pro-democracy activists have demanded a purge of cabinet in which the key portfolios of defense, justice, interior and foreign affairs have been run by appointees of Mubarak, who was swept from power on February 11, after 18 days of mass protests.

The 500,000-strong internal security services are accused of some of the worst human rights violations while attempting to suppress dissent against Mubarak's 30-year rule.

'Incriminating evidence'

Protesters stormed inside at least six of the buildings on Saturday, including the agency's main headquarters in Cairo's northern Nasr City neighborhood, confronting and attacking some officers.

They scoured the building for official documents, many of which were already shredded in piles or burned in what they believe was an attempt to hide evidence incriminating senior officials in abuses. Some also searched the building for secret detention rooms.

Lubna Darwish, a protester at the scene, told Al Jazeera that they had entered every office in the building.

"We were protesting for three hours ... at some point the doors opened and we stormed the building.

"In every office, we found tonnes and tonnes of shredded paper and left overs ... and we found a lot of folders of different cases, and then we found an underground place with around 20 cells. Next to the cells we found this big room where we found folders of almost every [Egyptian] activist ... people were finding their own folders ... their own photos," she said.

Searching for detainees

Around 2,500 people swept into the compound, according to state media.

Mohammed Abdel-Fattah, another protester, told the Associated Press that they had barged in from the back doors, and the military, which had cordoned off the building, could not stop them.

Army officers tried to get protesters out of the compound, but did not use force. One army officer rescued a state security officer from angry protesters and ushered him into a tank.

Egypt's State Security Investigations (SSI) which were given a free hand by emergency laws under Mubarak, are some of the most powerful symbols of the former regime.

Many protest leaders say despite the fall of Mubarak and his government, the agency remains active in protecting the old regime and trying to sabotage the revolution.

The SSI counts for at least 100,000 employees and a large network of informants, a security official told AFP news agency.

On Friday, Egypt's newly appointed prime minister Sharaf vowed to reform the dreaded security apparatus as he addressed thousands of people in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

"I pray that Egypt will be a free country and that its security apparatus will serve the citizens," he said, as thousands chanted "the people want the end of the state security."

When Mubarak resigned he handed power to a military council that has vowed to pave the way to a free and democratic system, pledging to bring to justice all those found guilty of abuse.

Torture 'widely practiced'

Activists say that while torture was once reserved for political prisoners and terrorism suspects, it became widely practiced even on petty criminal suspects.

The most recent case to have dominated headlines and sparked demonstrations was of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man beaten to death by two undercover police officers on a street in Alexandria last year.

Other notorious cases include Emad el-Kabir, who was sodomized with a stick in a police station in 2007, with images of the torture recorded on a mobile phone and broadcast on the Internet.

A total of seven police officers have been sentenced for torture or inhumane treatment since 2006, but no one from the SSI, has ever been prosecuted for torture.

Source: al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011365436227288.html.