Editorial

Will Ordinary Citizens Pay the Price for a Security Failure ?

Immediately following the bombings at Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian security forces announced a wave of arbitrary arrests that included some 95 people. Most detainees faced intensive interrogation and even torture by state security forces without any acceptable justification. State security even took women and children from the families of the suspects as hostages to force the surrender of wanted men. Such sweeping brutal measures will likely leave many innocent victims in their wake.

Security violence against groups such as those taken following the Taba incidents in October 2004 have proven to be an ineffective deterrent as clearly demonstrated by the occurrence of the two recent bombings within the same year and in the same place, South Sinai.

Sadly, it is ordinary citizens who pay the price of such incidents many times over—some are hurt or killed, others lose their tourism jobs, and still others face arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of the government. The Interior Minister's recent decision to fire several security leaders is insufficient to meet the challenge at hand and rectify the security failure of this latest incident. The Minister himself, having presided over the ministry during several previous security failures as well as slews of arbitrary arrests and detentions, should resign. Moreover, security forces should abandon their practice of arbitrarily arresting citizens on insufficient grounds and subjecting them to all types of torture in order to ascertain whether they are truly innocent or guilty.