Egyptian policemen protest against interior minister

Thousands of Egyptian policemen gathered Tuesday at the Interior Ministry building in downtown Cairo, calling for the removal of Interior Minister Mansour Essawy. At Cairo's Tahrir Square where the ministry is located, policemen set up tents on the pavement in front of the ministry and started their strike. They alleged that Essawy failed to deal with the security events in the country. Mahmoud Sulieman, one of the protestors, told Xinhua that "We want Mansour Essawy to be sacked as he can't keep the Egyptian streets safe." "We also want to expel the remnants of the former regime who are still in the ministry and are using the same rotten policies of the former one," he added. Egypt is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on Nov. 28, while the protestors doubt the police's capability to secure the process of elections. "How can we run the elections without security as the current interior minister can't ensure the security of the elections," Sulieman said. The protestors said there is no way for negotiations and they will escalate their protest into a hunger-strike if their demands are not met. Some Egyptian policemen have been protesting since Monday in the security directorates across the country, calling for better work conditions and sacking the interior minister. Essawy, who was appointed as the interior minister in early March in a government reshuffle, ordered in July to transfer all the officers facing trials for killing anti-government protestors earlier this year to desk jobs, and to dismiss some 669 police officers because of their roles in cracking down on the protestors.