Over the weekend, violent clashes broke out between protestors and security forces, after a Friday call for an "escape from the regime." One man was killed and dozens were injured as demonstrators were sprayed with tear gas and water hoses.
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Protestors threw Molotov cocktails over the gates of the presidential palace and one of the protestors was forcibly dragged, naked, into a police vehicle. The video capturing the security forces' brutal treatment of the man quickly went viral, and has evoked fury among the opposition and among the public.
Egyptian Interior Minister General Mohammed Ibrahim ordered an investigation into the incident, his spokesperson expressing disagreement with this type of behavior. Yet the National Salvation Front, the main opposition body in Egypt, stated that "these disgraceful pictures, in addition to the killing of one of the demonstrators in the protests, require the resignation of the foreign minister, and not only his apology."
The Office of the President also joined in the apology: "It pained us to see the appalling clip documenting the behavior of several police officers towards one of the demonstrators in a manner that does take into account basic decency and human rights."
Urging an investigation into the incident, it stated that, "it is unacceptable that someone will inflate individual mistakes, which are denounced by everyone, in order to justify this criminal attack against a State facility and violence and destruction in place of free expression and peace."
This event follows a 2012 occurrence in which opposition activist Radha Kamal Abd el-Khalek, of the group "April 6," was dragged by security forces from Tahrir Square and partially stripped, during the uprising against the military council headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
"When I tried to run, I was surprised by four soldiers who hit me. One of them pulled me by the hair and I fell on the floor, the second one stripped me of my clothes, and this appeared in all the websites and some of the newspapers. It was completely indecent," el-Khalek said after the incident.
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