Mother, 3 Daughters On Hunger Strike Over Egyptian Police Violations

A mother and her three daughters started an open sit-in and hunger strike inside the hospital of Qantara district, Ismailia, east of Cairo, protesting at the violations of the district policeman, Afifi.

This policeman arrested all members of the family included two other brothers and threw them in prison, in a compliment to an employee in the fingerprint department in the district”.

The eldest daughter, called Filistine, a commerce diploma student, took her sisters, Israa, a high school student, and Abeer, a primary school student, and their stay-at-home mom, Iman Hamed Abdul Hamid, on Tuesday to the reception area in Qantara Sharq hospital, and they sat on the floor to start their sit-in and hunger strike, protesting at the insults and obscene words pronounced by officer Afifi inside the police station.

Filistine narrates why this took place; she says that her sister’s fiancé, whose father is an employee at the fingerprint department in Qantara Sharq district, quarreled with them and took them to the police station; there, officer Afifi jailed, along with other policemen, her two brothers Ahmed and Mohamed, and they even held the mother and the girls also inside the arrest room after writing reports against them.

The mother, Iman, confirms that she tried to meet the police commissioner but in vain, and all her family spent the night in jail, while Israa’s previous fiancé, Mohamed Rabie, the son of the fingerprint employee, received a decent treatment; also, the police station of Qantara Sharq refused to release both boys, Ahmed and Mohamed, although a conciliation report was signed and the prosecution ordered them released.

The mother insists on not ending he sit-in or hunger strike unless she regains her dignity and the dignity of her family after their rights were violated by officer Affifi and police men, in a compliment to an employee in the police station.