CAIRO: Families of the Bedouins killed in clashes with security forces in Sinai last week gathered Friday and submitted a list of demands they urged authorities to heed. Families and other Bedouins gathered in Al-Ajra, 3 km from the border with Israel, to compile a list of demands they felt was necessary to ease tensions between them and the security apparatus. Amongst those demands was justice for the Bedouins who were killed and accountability for the officers held responsible. The Bedouins asked for an impartial body to conduct the investigation into the deaths of their kinsmen and for those responsible to be tried. On a wider note, those present also demanded a change in the treatment at the hands of security forces in Sinai, and called for the release of Bedouins currently incarcerated in various prisons throughout the country. If the demands were not heeded, the gatherers concluded, then protests would continue, though they promised it would not contain the violence of last week s clashes. Sinai s Bedouins were angered by the death of a member of the Tarabeen tribe after he turned to drive away from a police checkpoint. Assistant of the Minister of Interior for Legal Affairs Ibrahim Hamad said that guns and ammunition were found in the vehicle. The shootings last week triggered a mass wave of violent protest by Bedouins all along the border, as they burnt tires and discharged gunshots. During one of the clashes last week between Bedouins and security forces, three Bedouins were killed after a police station had been held. The bodies were later found half buried in the desert. Video footage of the three bodies and of policemen pointing the finger at their superior officer for torturing Bedouins spread throughout North Sinai. The Defense and National Security committee in the People s Assembly held a hearing earlier this week to discuss the latest troubles in Sinai. Hamad told the committee that certain criminal elements from the Bedouins had instigated this chaos to distract security forces from their smuggling activities across the border. He added that they managed to stir up peoples feelings with false accusations of severe security crackdowns on them although some of them were wanted for charges of criminality. Hamad said that the security presence on Sinai was now on high alert and that the situation currently was reassuring. He did thank the Bedouin tribes, prominent amongst them the Tarabeen, for playing an effective role in countering criminal activities.
