For the first time since 1986, riot police, called the "Central Security Forces" (CSF), as well as police officers, revolted against the regime. Last time, police conscripts of the CSF rebelled because of the inhuman conditions in which they worked; the protest was quickly and brutally subdued by the army. Today, the reasons are much more complicated, the phenomenon broader and the unrest deeper.
Thousands of CSF and officers are on strike or partaking in sit-ins across several cities and governorates for a variety of reasons. One of the key points for which many of the strikers are demanding is the resignation of Interior Minister General Mohamed Ibrahim, whom they accuse of being too close to the Muslim Brotherhood. He is accused of trying to "brotherhoodise" the ministry and security forces pulling the police directly into the country's political crisis. The use of the police by Mubarak in this way and the attempts by the Brotherhood to do so too puts the police in direct and permanent confrontation with the protesters. They argue that being used in this way deepens the hostility already found between police and a large proportion of the population.
The police claim the removal of a new law regulating the demonstrations which is likely to exacerbate the tension between the two parties. They are also calling for better working conditions, including an improvement of armaments, and a law defining clearly their rights and duties which they believe will provide legal protection when handling increasingly violent and bloody protests. According to the Minister of Interior, 186 officers have been killed and 800 wounded since the uprising of 25 January 2011.
The police and the Ministry of Interior were at the heart of the popular uprising that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. The symbolic date of 25 January, coinciding with the National Police Day, was chosen by the demonstrators to show their rejection of torture and brutal methods often practiced with impunity by the various police agencies, including the CSF and the infamous Security Investigations Service.
Since then, the reform of the Ministry of Interior has been a central demand by political and revolutionary forces, and is deemed to be a necessary condition for the establishment of a true democracy. However, nothing has really been done since the fall of Mubarak. While the Interior Minister has changed six times in two years, there have only been cosmetic changes; the arrival of new personalities has not resulted in tangible policies, or a new mentality. Promises of reform have simply not materialised.
Following the fall of Mubarak, several Human Rights groups presented to the government several projects of reform and restructuring of the Ministry of Interior and the police. But due to lack of political will on the part of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), nothing substantial has been done.
Although the once dreaded Security Investigations Service, responsible for notorious abuses, was abolished in March 2011, its replacement, the National Security Service, whose mission is supposed to be limited to the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, does not seem to be any improvement.
At the approach of the presidential elections in June 2012, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, revealed its political program, Al-Nahda (Awakening), calling for the restructuring of the Ministry of Interior and the adoption of a new law regulating its work. But the parliament at the time, dominated by the FJP and the Salafists was disbanded in mid-June, not having done anything in accordance with its own program, giving free rein to the same police practices.
This situation has not changed since the election of President Mohamed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Al-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, 88 people suffered police torture in the first 100 days of Morsi being in power, 34 of whom died of their injuries. The center's report, published last October, also stressed that Egypt had not seen such a large number of victims of torture in so little time. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights stated that during the fifteen years from 1993 to 2008, police torture caused the death of 204 people.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood feels the need to reform the police; for political reasons it does not seem to be overly eager to start the ball rolling. One of the leaders of FJP, Hamdi Hassan, recently indicated that it would be unwise to enter into confrontation with the police at this time, given the security challenges facing the country. He was signaling the existence of a resistance to reform within the Ministry of Interior. Of course this resistance exists, but several reform initiatives emanating from police mid-ranking officers themselves, and presented to the government, have also fallen on deaf ears. These initiatives proposed to purge the ministry of corrupt senior officers, to introduce better training more suited to a democratic system and to put an end to impunity for police officers. All of these proposals went unheeded.
One reason is clearly the desire of the regime to use the police as an instrument in its fight against political rivals. This is after all one of the most serious complaints made by the police strikering against the Interior Minister.
Police reform therefore remains highly problematic in this time of social unrest and extreme political polarization tension. The deteriorating of the political and economic climate and the deepening crisis between the different actors on the political scene makes it very difficult to start a serious reform of the police.
Already suffering from a poor image, the CSF and the police find themselves regularly in the front line against a myriad of popular protests and attacks of all kinds against state institutions. On the defensive since the uprising of 25 January, they feel helpless before the violence of the attacks and "trapped" between, on the one hand, the hierarchy and the regime, which demand they deal with the popular protests and, on the other, the people, who often seem determined to take revenge on a State body with a bad reputation. In this climate of extreme hostility between police and protesters, torture and ill-treatment of civilians are commonplace.
In the absence of a political solution that brings some calm in the streets, this vicious circle of violence and counter violence is not ready to stop any time soon. It has ended up creating an untenable situation for a growing number of police officers and members of the CSF. The strike makes it imperative that the regime listens to their grievances and overhaul the entire security apparatus.
