27 people detained in Luxor following clashes with police

The Luxor prosecution remanded 27 people into custody for four days on Saturday pending investigations into their involvement in fierce clashes between police and residents of Ashey Village.

The suspects face a number of charges, including deliberately setting two police vehicles in fire, assaulting public officials, illegal arms possession, throwing stones, blocking roads, obstructing public transportation and vandalizing public property, an eyewitness told Mada Masr.

Ahmed Hegazy, who was briefly detained following the clashes, claimed that the clashes broke out on Friday when a police officer attempted to arrest two minors who were driving a motorcycle. Villagers intervened to stop the arrest, insisting that the motorcycle was licensed, whereupon the police officer began verbally insulting them, Hegazy said.  

“The officer ordered the other police personnel to take the two minors to the police station and insisted that he would drive the motorcycle himself to the station, and attempted to run over some of the angry citizens. People were outraged, took the motorcycle and chased the officer, who stabbed one of the residents with a knife, inflicting a light injury,” Hegazy continued.

One village resident offered to hide the police officer from the angry crowd, which then mobbed the house where he was hiding. Police forces quickly arrived on the scene, and after a stand-off that lasted a few hours, secured the officer’s release. According to Hegazy, they randomly arrested several village residents and fired tear gas into the crowd.

Hegazy, a number of his family members and others were rounded up, as well as three minors who were later released.

“I was briefly detained and severely beaten,” Hegazy recounted. “I was accused of belonging to a terrorist organization and the April 6 Youth Movement, and of inciting protests against the police. Soon, the police feared my arrest would politicize the incident, due to my political activity, so I was released.”

Interior Ministry spokesperson Abu Bakr Abdel Karim said in a telephone interview with the privately owned TV channel Al-Mehwar on Saturday that a scuffle broke out between police and village residents who were enraged by the arrest of two young men riding an unlicensed motorcycle. Abdel Karim claimed the residents threw stones at the police, assaulted them and set fire to two police vehicles.

Security forces dispersed the crowds by firing tear gas and arresting the instigators of the violence, the spokesperson claimed. Abdel Kerim denied accounts that police forces assaulted civilians, and promised that they would be held accountable if such claims were proven to be true.

The southern governorate has witnessed mounting tensions between police and civilians over the past year. In November 2015, similar clashes erupted in Luxor’s Awameya district after Talaat Shabeeb was killed while in police custody.

Shabeeb’s family said their son was tortured to death at the police station after he was arrested from a coffee shop in the area. Protests against his purported murder devolved into clashes with the police. Twenty-four protesters were arrested and later released, while four police officers were sent to jail after being convicted of torturing Shabeeb.

Hegazy fears the violence could escalate even further.

“This village has been extremely quiet and supportive of the police and the government since June 30,” he said, “but things may change if the situation is not dealt with properly, and those unjustly detained are not freed. The village now is like a ticking bomb.”