CAIRO, May 2 (Reuters) – Thousands of Egyptian hardline
Islamists marched from a mosque in a Cairo suburb on Thursday
night to the state security headquarters to protest against what
they said was a return to the force’s pre-revolution methods.
The protest points to lingering suspicion harboured by the
hardliners about security agencies used against them by ousted
President Hosni Mubarak, and which, they say, Islamist President
Mohamed Mursi has been unable to reform.
Several Salafi Islamist groups issued a statement earlier in
the day saying state security organs had returned to “criminal
practices” such as summoning citizens for investigation,
threatening the achievements of the 2011 uprising.
Egypt dissolved the feared and hated state security
apparatus, which has been used by Mubarak’s administration to
crush political opposition, including from Islamists who were
repressed under the old guard, the month after he was toppled.
It was replaced by a new National Security Force, which the
Interior Ministry promised would serve the nation without
interfering in the lives of citizens or their right to exercise
their political views.
Protesters, some waving the black and white al Qaeda flag,
chanted to onlookers in apartments on streets clogged by the
march “come down from houses, state security is Mubarak”, and
accused Mursi of building an apparatus no different from the old
one.
The system of law and justice has been a major stumbling
block in post-Mubarak Egypt. A rift between the Islamist rulers
and the judiciary, which Islamists see as controlled by Mubarak
loyalists, is steadily widening amid a broader struggle over the
future character of the country.
Earlier on Thursday, an Egyptian judge referred a complaint
filed by a police spokesman against popular hardline Islamist
cleric Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to the state security prosecution,
setting a hearing for Saturday to begin the investigation.
State newspaper Al-Ahram reported that the complaint called
for Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to arrest Abu Ismail on
charges of “terrorising police officers” after Abu Ismail urged
his supporters to attend Thursday’s protest.
The police spokesman’s complaint added that such
demonstrations hindered officers in their work to protect
national security.
(Reporting by Abdelrahman Youssef and Ali Abdelaty; Writing by
Maggie Fick and Tom Perry; Editing by Alison Williams)
