Assistant Interior Minister for Security Ahmed Helmy said that the referendum would go on, no matter what.
“We will not allow any disruption of the referendum,” he told Al-Arabiya channel on Thursday evening. “We will secure the judges and the ballot boxes, and we will not interfere unless called by the judges.”
Helmy said that he expects student demonstrations to die down. “The organizational structure of the Brotherhood internally is almost completely paralyzed,” he said.
He added that the situation in Sinai is improving.
On Mohamed Morsy being denied visits in prison, Helmy said this happened only once when there were reports of an attempt to help him escape. “He is in Borg Al-Arab prison,” he said.
On charges that the police use excessive force to disperse demonstrations in universities, he said the police will never trespass onto campuses. “We refused to go in even when university administrations asked us to in order to protect the professors,” he said. “We use water cannons to prevent students coming out of campus to demonstrate in the streets.”
On Mohamed Reda, the student of the Faculty of Engineering who was killed in clashes, Helmy said he was shot from inside the campus. “The kind of cartouche he was shot with is not used by the police,” he said. “For that kind to be effective it has to be shot from 3 to 5 meters.”
On building new prisons, he said this is needed so as to improve prison conditions and reach international standards.
As to whether visits to Brotherhood leaders are from behind glass barriers, Helmy said this is not true. “They are allowed to sit alone with their lawyers,” he said. “We only inspect food entering.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
