CAIRO: The Police Coalition said the decision to freeze its activities following a meeting with the interior minister was taken solely by its members and not under threat, noting that many objectives have been achieved. The coalition made the announcement Tuesday following a meeting with Minister of Interior Mansour El-Essawy on Monday night. "The decision is only to freeze our activities and not to disband the coalition. We wanted a period of time to rearrange ourselves and evaluate the pros and cons of the past period," said Ahmed Ragab, spokesperson of the coalition. El-Essawy decided to accept the resignation of three of his assistants following his meeting with the coalition, a major demand that the coalition has been calling for. "We will now return to our positions before the coalition … and we will return if needed or if officers call us to," Ragab said. "The decision was met by frustration and anger from officers and most of them believe that we were pressured to take this decision," he added. The coalition was formed following the resignation of ousted president Hosni Mubarak to reform the police authority. They have been demanding the discharge of ministerial assistants appointed during the reign of former minister Habib El-Adly and enhancing working conditions of and providing legal protection to officers. According to Ragab, the coalition's achievements include the minister's decision not to extend the service for officers over 60 years old, reducing working hours to eight, and allowing officers to take an unpaid vacation up to eight years provided that they have a working contract. He said thanks to their efforts, the boards of police clubs will be elected and many officers returned to the streets to restore security. They also helped prevent attacks on Central Security Forces camps and prevented strikes and protests by police officers in several governorates. The coalition, however, will boycott the elections set for May 29 and will not field any candidates. Due to the critical conditions the country is going through, they said they will now work on restoring security to the streets. Member officers had previously denied allegations that they were threatened by El-Essawy that they would be discharged from duty if they didn't disband the coalition, saying that El-Essawy had been very cooperative with them. "We met him four times and one time with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who praised us and approved our demands," Ragab said.
