The Defense and National Security Committee in Parliament said on Monday that it is finalizing a draft law to restructure the Interior Ministry and the police deparrment, since the ministry did not show willingness to take any action in this regard.
“The undesirable officials of the ministry must be removed,” committee chairman Abbas Mekheimar said on Monday.
The committee discussed questioning on the security vacuum, the spread of crime and thefts, and the crimes of criminals known to the police who do not take any action against them.
The committee’s undersecretary, Farid Ismail, criticized security personnel for inciting citizens against the government.
“An example is the police officer who was caught inciting the Petrojet Company workers to break into Parliament last week,” he said.
Ahmed Helmy, the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, refused accusations that the ministry knows suspects.
“Unemployment produces 60 percent of the criminals we see today,” he said.
He added that there is a plan devised in coordination with the Defense Ministry to attack criminal hideouts.
“It is not failure on the part of the police, but those criminal hideouts, which have been around for 30 years, are in remote desert areas,” he said.
MP Tarek Qutb told the committee a story about a man whose car was stolen, claiming, “The police officer identified the thief for him and told him to pay him something in return for the car.”
Police had been criticized for suppressing political activism under former President Mubarak. Following Mubarak’s ouster, many political forces have urged the restructuring of the police force and the purging of Mubarak loyalists.
Last month, People’s Assembly Speaker Saad al-Katatny asked Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to submit his plan for restructuring his ministry as soon as possible.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
