Egypt 6th April Aftermath: Interior Ministry floods newspapers with lies

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said , today, that the statement of the Egyptian interior ministry issued on Wednesday, April 7, contained many lies and false information, in order to cover up for the shameful crimes committed by security forces against unarmed civilians who just marched out to express their refusal of extending the state of emergency enforced on Egypt 29 years ago.

The interior ministry started its statement with an unashamed lie, saying that the police acted violently only after being hit by stones. No citizen did throw any stones, as there were no stones or hard objects found in Tahrir sq. or Kasr AlAini street. In essence, beating people up and dragging them on the streets started early morning of 6th April in both Cairo and Alexandria.

The statement also falsely stated that violence to break up the peaceful march began after several warnings, which is another official lie. The ministry gave no time or chance for people to assemble and get organized in the first place. As a result, press and media personnel as well as human rights organizations staff were abused by security in a failing attempt to cover up for atrocities committed against Egyptians on that day.

Although the ministry of interior seized the legal right of youth to stage a march and though the ministry responded negatively on staging the march in contrary to the law, youth abided to the law and filed a suit at the state council claiming their right to demonstrate and not one of them was arrested before 6th April.

However, security tried to show in every way , that riots all over Egypt on that day were illegally incited by 6th April movement alone, ignoring the fact that many political forces and parties participated in these demonstrations in as well as many people who are longing for a homeland free of emergency state and repression.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said “it is quite confusing and hard to tell the difference between state newspapers crawling with lies and the statement of the interior ministry. We can no longer differentiate between a newspaper article written by a police officer and the statement of the interior ministry edited by a journalist belonging to the official bunch. Lying, deception and denial of the right of citizens to express their opinion and their stance has become a common attribute between police press and press police”.

Despite that the prosecutor general has issued a release order for all detainees as of 7/4/2010, yet many are still arbitrarily detained at police stations. The Arabic Network has so far learnt three names and their detention places:

1 – Abdel Rahman Fares, blogger

2 – Ahmad Najib lawyer

Both are at Agouza police station.

3 – Shahab Wagih ,student, at Cairo Security Directorate

Republished with permission from bikya masr