An opposition party and a group of human rights groups have said they will ask Egypt's Chief Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to order an investigation into calls attributed to three lawmakers to fire at demonstrators.
“The three MPs, who made this incitement, must be stripped of their parliamentary immunity to be probed over their remarks, which reflect the regime’s fear of young people seeking change,” said Abdel Halim Qandil, a leading activist in the protest group Kefaya.
During a parliamentary session Sunday on police’s response to a protest staged by the opposition 6th of April movement earlier this month, three lawmakers, including two from the National Democratic Party criticized police for their “leniency” towards demonstrators and reportedly urged the Ministry of the Interior to shoot at them.
“The Ministry should strike with an iron fist against the outlaws,” the local media quoted Nashat el-Qasas from the NDP as saying. “Fire at the law-breaking demonstrators.”
Ragab Hemedia, from the troubled Ghad Party, meanwhile, criticised police for not using force to break up demonstrators on April 6. "This would be better than allowing the whole nation to be ruined," he was quoted as saying.
Hamed Rashed, an assistant to the Minister of the Interior, told the Parliament that under the law, the police have “the right to use force and shoot at demonstrators if they disrupted public order”.
The leftist Tagmuh party and pro-democracy groups said these remarks were dangerous and violated human rights.
