A coalition of 30 Egyptian human rights groups has launched an operations unit in downtown Cairo to provide protesters with legal support.
The unit has specialized contact numbers to receive calls from protesters and activists to inform on police violations and detentions, said Ahmed Ragheb, a lawyer and a member at the Front to Defend Egypt Protestors.
The operations unit is based at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, a human rights organization.
Ragheb criticized statements by Cairo's security chief, Ismal al-Shaer, in which he threatened protestors with detention. He stressed that the warning violates the Constitution, which provides citizens with the freedom to protest. Ragheb argued that the Ministry of Interior should protect the demonstrators instead of detaining them.
Egypt's Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly had warned that protesters will be detained, describing them as "a bunch of incognizant, ineffective young people.
“Security authorities are capable of deterring any danger to citizens’ safety or damage to properties,” the minister maintained, adding that protesters will be protected only if they are merely gathering to “express their opinion”.
