The Freedom and Justice Party in Daqahlia has demanded that detainees tried by the military not be released, after 68 detainees with prior criminal records were released in the governorate.
The party's headquarters in the governorate contacted the police department to investigate the 68 released detainees, after receiving complaints that most of them were thugs and previously convicted criminals.
Sources said that the governorate police department has handed the criminal records of the released detainees to the party. Many of them turned out to be registered convicts who were arrested by the military police in the aftermath of the 25 January revolution, during what is known as the security vacuum.
The suspects were tried by the military, for the sake of speed and harsh punishment, on charges of thuggery and weapon trading.
According to sources at the security department, the release came as a shock to the police authority in Daqahlia, since some members of the police force had risked their lives in arresting them.
Daqahlia residents were also shocked, according to security department sources who said that a state panic prevailed in their former areas of influence, such as Manzala and Meet Ghamr, after the announcement of the prisoners’ release.
"We do not accept that thugs go back to the street,” said Osman Ahmed Hegazy, secretary of the Freedom and Justice Party in Mansoura. “That's why the party decided to get the criminal records for those released detainees and sent them to the secretariat of the party, and then to the presidency.”
Hegazy stressed that the reason why these detainees in particular were released is because the public security sector at the Interior Ministry had examined the detainees’ files and determined that they didn’t represent a risk to public security.
In protest, a campaign called "No to Releasing Thugs" was launched in Daqahlia. Campaign activists said that releasing the detainees out onto the street would spread fear and terror in the governorate, which cannot afford any more security problems.
President Mohamed Morsy had issued a decree to release 572 military-tried civilians who were arrested with charges related to protesting and the revolution. The detainees were selected after their files were examined by a special committee to ensure convicted criminals were not released.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
