It is no longer strange to see pictures of Osama Bin Laden being raised at a demonstration “against violence" in Egypt. Indeed, so many incidents take place every day without causing surprise or being considered by any officials – whether on the field where there is an abundance of demonstrations, protests, tear gas canisters, bullets and Molotov cocktails, or in great halls where the meetings of politicians and officials, and the struggles of the elites, take place. This is why the incident that took place at Beni Suef went by without the state mobilizing, the government taking action, its institutions flaring up, or those in positions of power taking heed. Rather one could note a certain amount of “cover-up" of it on the part of officials, attempting to obscure the features or the details of the incident, or the evidence pointing to those implicated in it. Most ridiculous is the fact that they then return to complain of the spread of violence, asking about the reasons behind it and accusing others of being responsible for it. The story is that a police unit went out in pursuit of a group of outlaws wanted on charges of bullying, drugs and armed robbery in the Beni Suef governorate south of the capital. A gunfight ensued between the two sides, during which one of the suspects shot an officer dead. The incident seems ordinary and oft-repeated, especially in light of what followed the Revolution in terms of the cancerous activity of outlaws and thugs who prosper in the climate of security unrest, and who are also the ones being used by those struggling for power, from time to time, whenever necessary, or when one side needs them in order to accuse the other of controlling and “paying" them! Yet what was not ordinary was for the police to bring the suspect, after having captured him, place him on top of a car and parade him around the streets of the city during the officer's funeral – thus having the officer's angry colleagues, family members, neighbors and sympathizers gather around the suspect to carry out a death sentence issued by them as his punishment, raining blows down on him, dragging him on the ground and torturing him, amid chants such as “Bullet for Bullet", “Blood for Blood", and “Punishment"! One should note here that these are the same slogans and chants that are sometimes raised during protests against the police! And when everyone thinks that the suspect has died, they drop him at a hospital to make funeral arrangements, but the doctors find out that he is still alive and administer treatment. And while police chiefs and officers, and with them the people of the city, move forward with the officer's funeral, the suspect's relatives head to the hospital, threaten the doctors and take him away with them! It is the epitome of absurdity, lawlessness and negation of what remains of the prestige of the state, over the levers of power of which politicians struggle. Meanwhile, the police complain of being dragged into the flames of this political struggle, and assert that their men have nothing to do with it, despite people seeing its members and its officers every day clashing with activists and chasing down politicians. They ask about violence and the reasons for it, while those who are supposed to confront violence are practicing it, those who should stop it are encouraging it, and those who have the duty to forbid it are spreading it! The important question here is: how can the police ask activists to abide by the law and go through the judicial process in order to obtain punishment for those responsible for the death of their comrades who were martyred in confrontations, while its own members take revenge themselves on the man who killed the officer, in broad daylight, in front of cameras, and before any kind of investigation or court ruling? And what about the weapons that were raised during the funeral by civilians alongside those of police officers? It is a scene that sums up the situation in Egypt, the decay of state institutions and the way they apply the law according to standards of their own. Before talking about demonstrations going out of control or about the violence of protests, if that is indeed the situation, it would not be strange then to overlook incidents such as the attack against activists near the Heliopolis (Ittihadiya) Palace, the siege of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC), that of the Media Production City (MPC), or incidents targeting activists. Then they ask about violence and the reasons for it. Most surprising, as well as ridiculous or hilarious, as per the saying “the worst misfortune can be cause for laughter", were the statements of a security official from Beni Suef who went around satellite television talk shows claiming that the presence of the suspect at the officer's funeral had been a coincidence, and justifying the attack against him by the fact that the murdered, nay martyred, officer belonged to a prominent family in the governorate and enjoyed the affection and appreciation of the local inhabitants, and denying that any police officer might have taken part in the attack against him, without realizing that his words were being accompanied onscreen by video footage of the inhabitants and of police officers in the process of carrying out the punishment! Ever since its collapse at the start of the Egyptian Revolution, the police has been suffering from a crisis of trust. And what are the protests by some of its members last week against being dragged into the political struggle but an example to be added to the hatred felt by broad segments of the population against it by virtue of its past legacy? Yet what is more dangerous for it now is that it is wasting every opportunity to overcome its crisis and growing more distant from the people, even if it is getting closer... to those in power!
