Sinai Bedouin tribal leaders have said that the Egyptian government is still holding up to 3000 Bedouin detainees despite recent waves of release. During a conference, entitled “The Sinai Problem and its Solution,” organized by the Freedoms Commission of the Journalists Syndicate on Wednesday, several tribal leaders and activists called for the release of over 3,000 Bedouins who were detained following a series of bombings that hit the Peninsula between 2004 and 2006. The tribal leaders and activists offered to reconcile with the government on the condition that they agree to release all the imprisoned Bedouin and to pay a ransom--in accordance with tribal custom--to the families of those killed by security forces. The Bedouin leaders warned the government that there would be consequences for ignoring the rights of those interned, including those who have already been freed. They demanded that the recently liberated prisoners be given work in development projects and security details in the Sinai. The leaders also called for the formation of a non-partisan committee representing all political currents that would work to ease tensions between the Sinai Bedouin and the government. “We in the Sinai are against looking at this vital region purely from a security standpoint,” said North Sinai People's Committee Coordinator, Ashraf el-Hefni. “This attitude has turned the citizens of the Sinai into targets for incarceration and sometimes even violence.” “We still have a list of the dead whose killers were not put on trial. We can never make concessions over this issue,” he added. “The Interior Ministry's latest ruse to free less than ten percent of those imprisoned won't fool us,” warned Hefni. According to Hefni, the Sinai Bedouin want to benefit from the natural gas “that passes under [their] feet on its way to Israel.” Tribal chief Ayyish blamed the government for the high rates of unemployment in Sinai. “Instead of employing all that huge amount of concrete and rocks to build security gates, they could have used them to create jobs in our area,” he said. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
