Ammar Ali Hassan, a writer and political researcher, and his brother Khalaf, a reporter with Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, were beaten by military police stationed at the barrier before the cabinet building on Qasr al-Aini Street in Cairo on Monday. “The military police forbade me from crossing, though this is the road I take every day,” Hassan told Al-Masry Al-Youm, adding that he asked the officer if he could speak with his commander. “When the [military police] officer was closing the barbed wire behind him, I stopped him so that I would not get hurt,” he said. “So he claimed I was attacking him, and his colleagues beat us without giving us a chance to explain what happened.” “I heard the officer telling his commander that I slapped him on the face,” he added. “The officer told us, do you think the revolution will do you any good, and then tried to arrest us,” he said. “But he disappeared when he saw me calling the parliament speaker.” Hassan continued that he later dropped his complaint at the police station in the presence of the interior minister's representative and a number of politicians and activists. “I forgave him,” he said. The armed forces built at least three concrete walls surrounded by barbed wire and deployed security forces in the area around the cabinet building after clashes between protesters and security forces in December. On 16 December, military forces violently dispersed a sit-in outside the cabinet that protested the appointment of Kamal al-Ganzouri as prime minister. At least 17 people were killed in the clashes. The resulting traffic detours have exacerbated an already massive traffic problem in the busy capital. The military council says it was forced to set up the road obstacles to prevent new clashes.
