Two pro-Palestinian protesters were filmed being dragged and beaten by security guards inside the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN in New York City, according to footage published Saturday by NBC News.
The men were identified as Yasin ElSammak, 22, and his younger brother Ali, 15. Their parents confirmed the details to NBC, saying the two were attacked in front of cameras before being arrested by New York police.
Two pro-Palestinian protesters being dragged and beaten by security guards inside the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN in New York City
Both brothers were charged with assaulting two members of the Egyptian mission staff, believed to be the same guards who confronted them. According to NBC, charges against Ali were later dropped, and the charges against Yasin were reduced following a family court hearing. Their father, Akram—an Egyptian immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for decades—said Yasin suffered a neck injury and had difficulty breathing after the beating. “Our sons were kidnapped and beaten on American soil, and then the officers of the United States of America came to arrest my sons,” he said angrily.
The incident occurred Wednesday amid weeks of protests outside Egyptian embassies worldwide over Cairo’s alleged role in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Demonstrators have been demanding Egypt open the Rafah crossing. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government has bristled at accusations that it bears responsibility for conditions in the enclave.
Arab media outlets circulated an unverified recording last week that appeared to capture Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty telling Egypt’s ambassador in The Hague to “grab” and “drag” protesters inside their buildings and call the police.
NBC reported that in New York, protesters similarly tried to lock the mission’s door. A third demonstrator, Husam Khaled, who was not arrested, said he chained the doors before fleeing. He later returned and witnessed the brothers being detained. Khaled said he had only brought Yasin along to film his own protest actions, and that Yasin had brought his younger brother.
Khaled’s footage shows the guards dragging the brothers inside and striking them. In the background, a bystander can be heard shouting, “They’re bringing the kids inside the building,” Khaled told NBC that Yasin was hit in the neck with the chain. “I was telling them, ‘It was me, let them go, they didn’t do anything,’” he recalled.
NBC said another video Khaled filmed shows him asking an Egyptian staff member whether he was following the foreign minister’s alleged leaked orders. The staffer replied yes.
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Two pro-Palestinian protesters being dragged and beaten by security guards inside the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN in New York City
The brothers’ parents, Akram and Olga, who immigrated from Russia, stressed that both sons are U.S. citizens. “That’s the crime of my kids,” Akram said. “They say, ‘Let the children eat and have some medicine and have some water.'”
A New York protest group, Within Our Lifetime, which describes itself as Palestinian-led, condemned what it termed “the extension of Egypt’s campaign of repression beyond its own borders and onto U.S. soil.”