A widely-circulated video has shown police officers dragging and insulting a cafe owner who cried foul during a police campaign to raze illegal businesses on roadsides.
"Enough, sir, this is too much,” the man was heard shouting while police officers stood by watching a bulldozer bring down an illegally erected canopy outside his cafe.
“Bring him to me,” the senior officer was heard yelling at his officers who pulled the man, beat him and cursed at him on the way to their vehicle.
Commenting on the video, Assistant Interior Minister for Human Rights, Abu Bakr Abdel Karim, told satellite channel ONTV on Tuesday that Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar had watched the video and ordered an investigation into the incident.
Abdel Karim offered his apologies to the abused citizen, adding “What happened has offended all of us.”
Police malpractice and recurrent reports of prison torture were the main driving force behind the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak.
Recent months have seen several reports of prison deaths that have been mainly blamed on police abuse.
The Interior Ministry has occasionally denied torture claims and largely labelled public abuses as individual actions.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
