CAIRO - Walid and Mohamed are two of dozens of Egyptians, who have been camping outside the headquarters of the Cabinet in central Cairo for more than two weeks. "We are from Nubariya and we will not leave Cairo before the martyrs get their rights from their killers," says Mohamed, a farmer, referring to his Delta hometown. Neither Mohamed nor Walid, sitting on frayed blankets, had relatives killed in a police crackdown during the popular revolt that eventually unseated long-standing president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. "But we saw young, promising people brutally killed by police in Mohamed Mahmoud Street," explains Walid, referring to a five-day clampdown by security forces on protesters in a street near the iconic Tahrir Square last month. Forty-two people were killed in the crackdown that forced the previous Government of Essam Sharaf to resign. Mahmoud and Walid are not the only protesters from outside Cairo. There are others who have come from remote governorates such as Qena and the Red Sea to join in the open-ended protest. The campers outside the Cabinet building are determined not to allow the new Prime Minister, Kamal el-Ganzouri, to enter it. They consider him an extension of the Mubarak regime, although the man is known to have fallen out of the former strongman's favour in the late 1990s and lived under virtual house arrest for long years. "We will not leave. We are ready to be martyred like them," says Walid, pointing to a row of symbolic coffins draped in the national flag on the pavement beside him. "We'll get them their rights or die like them," reads a nearby placard. For his part, el-Ganzouri, at pains to win over his critics, has vowed not to use violence against the diehard protesters. "I will not tolerate using violence, even verbal, against them," el-Ganzouri said the other day in his makeshift office in a governmental building in eastern Cairo. How the situation will end remains to be seen. However, the way the issue of the people killed or injured by security forces during protests against Mubarak or his military successors is being handled is confusing. On taking over as Prime Minister in late March, Essam Sharaf promised to give top priority to the harrowing issue. Several committees were created with the declared aim of caring for the families of the victims of police cruelty. More than eight months later, the problem drags on unresolved. Adding insult to injury, many of those believed to have been involved in the deadly crackdown in the final days of Mubarak and in November have not been brought to justice. The sloppy handling of this issue makes many Egyptians skeptical about changes in post-Mubarak Egypt. In the process of forming his Government earlier this month, el-Ganzouri promised to create a ministry to look after the families of the protesters slain and injured in the protests since January 25 – when the anti-Mubarak uprising began. Days later, the proposed ministry ended up as a council. Well, the designation – a ministry or a council – does not really matter. What does matter is that real, swift steps should be taken to redress the injustice felt by hundreds of Egyptian families, whose children have been brutally killed. At least 846 people were killed in the anti-Mubarak revolution, according to an independent commission. Equally important, the wrongdoers should be put on trial. Failing to do this will continue to cast a shadow over the intentions of those in power.
