With the uprising in Egypt now coming to an end, strikes and industrial disputes have broken out across the country, with policemen shipping in for the first time ever, reports Nesmahar Sayed While many citizens and protesters were accusing policemen of murdering demonstrators and then running away on Friday 28 January, policemen found such discourse offensive and, in a reversal of the norm for the first time ever, decided to go on strike. Responding to a call by two of their number to demonstrate, some 2,000 officers from many governorates besides Cairo set out from Galaa Square, outside the Dokki Police Station, towards Tahrir. Their principal demand -- directed at the present Minister of Interior Mahmoud Wagdi -- was to acknowledge the martyrs of the events since 28 January. According to one participant, some 200 police personnel have died during clashes with demonstrators, but no official report on this has been released. The policeman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the former minister is largely to blame for what happened; policemen themselves, already badly paid, suffering from frustration and depression for many years, went through extremely difficult circumstances in the last three weeks. Any complaints had been routinely dismissed as failing to follow orders. In Tahrir Square, the officers saluted the martyrs and moved onto the ministry headquarters in Lazoghli Square. Another participant (a Special Operations officer commanding 20 Central Security troops), also speaking anonymously, testified that a large number of policemen were killed after 5pm on 28 January: "We did not surrender. The moment army vehicles arrived on the scene, in the absence of orders from our superiors, we headed back to the Ministry of Interior." They were not attacked by the protesters, he explained, calling for an investigation into who it was who attacked them. The day had gone wrong when he realised that the number of protesters was far greater than he had been told and, around 4pm, wireless communication was suddenly cut. At the ministry headquarters, where he eventually arrived, tires were burning and giving off smoke and machine guns were being fired. A third policeman on strike insisted he had received no orders to kill protesters; the communication issue was such he did not even know about the curfew till 8pm; of course, mobile phone lines were cut off all over the country. When army vehicles appeared in the vicinity of the American Embassy -- these were actually presidential guard vehicles -- protesters attacked them with bricks (some, according to him, threw stones from the roofs of buildings) as well as Molotov cocktails. The police had received no orders since the afternoon, they did not know what to do; he decided to withdraw. On his way back to the police car he spotted four white four-wheel drives with diplomatic plates that turned out to be armoured coming out of the embassy street and entering Qasr Al-Aini, where the demonstrators were concentrated. It is well known by now that one of these cars eventually ran over a large number of protesters and drove off; according to this policeman, it also killed Central Security troops on its way. He used his own revolver -- no other weapon was available to him -- to stop the other three: one, after being used by the police, was burned by protesters; one crashed into a lamp post, and the third he took to the ministry. The drivers all escaped. The situation remained critical till 4am on Saturday 29 January, and in that time a Central Security commander was slaughtered. "We have no idea who did all this! Many were attacked, burned to death in the vehicles, killed..." According to other sources the number of dead troops has yet to be calculated. On 28 January, some 12,000 policemen were on the streets; and those who participated in this demonstration, representing them, levelled the charge of corruption at the Ministry of Interior and at other ministries whose decisions it executed. They particularly blamed State Security who, according to one of them, are appointed largely on recommendations from influential figures within the ministry and are therefore badly qualified. The ability and loyalty of State Security "proved to be a big lie after what happened, the amount of chaos that occurred that day: we are sure it was not the protesters who committed those crimes". The policemen demonstrating demanded the institution of a police syndicate, the introduction of leadership skills, and the re- establishment of attitudes and mentalities whereby the security forces can be restored to their job of protecting the people. Last but not least, they demanded transparency and higher salaries. "A minister's assistant is paid LE300,000 a month, while the captain gets LE1,000." "People think of us as people who are willing to take bribes," said Sherif El-Naggar, who has been working for the Interior Ministry for seven years. "But what people do not ask themselves is how a police officer can live on a salary of LE600 a month. I pay LE350 for my flat, and then my wife and I have only LE150 left to live on." "I have been working for 30 years, and my salary is only LE1,000 a month," Mohamed Fathi, 50, told the Weekly. The police are also protesting against perceived inequalities in salaries and irregularities in promoting officers who have Bachelor's degrees. "The lowest salaries are paid to policemen working in national security and the highest to those in government security and other departments," Fathi said. Many of the demands have been immediately responded to by the state, including those of workers currently on contract who would like permanent appointments.
