Social media users circulated a video Saturday showing two youths bullying an old man and torching his beard with a lighter; allegedly in Helwan, south of Cairo.
“What is it, man, you don’t speak to us, keep going,” one of the young men told the bearded man at the beginning of the video, pushing him away.
“Don’t [push] me like that,” said the graying man, but the youth threatened to torch the man’s beard, who also threatened to report them to the State Security.
“What State Security, we belong to Daesh (Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group),” the other young man in the video said, waving a lighter in front of the older man’s face.
Eventually, the man said “here’s my beard,” and one of the bullies torched his beard, and once it caught on fire his friend put it out with his hand. The person filming the video is heard laughing out loud, and the two bullies are seen getting away from the man.
“Are you happy now?” said the bullying victim, swearing he would report them at a police station.
The police will exert effort to arrest the two youths, Assistant to the Minister of Interior Abu Bakr Abdel Kereim told Sada el-Balad channel Saturday.
Condemning the undated incident, Abdel Kereim said officers from the ministry’s human rights department will contact the victim to “boost his morale.”
