CAIRO: A woman who alleges that she was assaulted by a police officer says she will not withdraw the case she has mounted against him.
Hanaa Saad Ibrahim, from El-Mahalla El-Kobra, says that she and her family were visited numerous times by both local members of the National Democratic Party and individuals she suspects are in the employ of the police officer she alleges assaulted her.
During these visits they attempted to persuade her to withdraw the charges she has filed against police officer Haitham El-Shamy.
Ibrahim alleges that El-Shamy, head of investigations at the Mahalla no.1 police station was part of a force which illegally entered Ibrahim’s family home and assaulted her on June 28.
“I was on the roof of our building when they arrived. Our cleaner came up and told me that there was someone downstairs. I was expecting my son’s private tutor at the time, but when I went downstairs there was a group of them there, around 8-10 men, Ibrahim told Daily News Egypt in a telephone interview.
“They went into the apartment and started searching it, breaking things in the process. When I asked El-Shamy whether he had a warrant to do this he slapped me on the face twice and insulted me. They then went into my daughters’ room despite the fact that I told them they were inappropriately dressed.
It subsequently transpired that the police force had arrived in connection with charges against Ibrahim’s brother of issuing a bad check.
“My son Mohamed came downstairs and saw El-Shamy hitting me. He tried to intervene saying, ‘why are you hitting mom? Shame on you’.
El-Shamy then gave instructions for Ibrahim’s 17-year-old son, a high school student, to be taken to the police station.
Ibrahim says that she sustained an injury to her knee when she was dragged down the stairs of her building from her second floor apartment outside to the street. She says she was horrified by the fact that her neighbors saw her in her house clothes, unveiled and in a short-sleeved dress.
Ibrahim’s sister, Sahar, was also injured when, Ibrahim says, she arrived at the scene and was assaulted by the police.
She says that she received further injuries when she attempted to cling onto the police van in which her son had been placed, but was kicked away by police officers inside.
Ibrahim went with her husband Alaa El-Sayyed Sharaf to the Mahalla no.1 police station where their son was being held. He was released later the same day.
When the couple tried to file a complaint about the assault, Ibrahim says that she spent “hours listening to police officers trying to dissuade her from doing so.
“When we went to the public prosecution office we were shocked to discover that my son, my sister and I had been charged with resisting authorities and obstructing the law.
The charges were eventually dropped.
The failure of the public prosecution office to summon witnesses in relation to the charges filed by the family prompted a hunger strike by Ibrahim and Sharaf, which lasted five days.
While public prosecution office investigations are currently ongoing, Ibrahim says that witnesses have still not been summoned to give evidence.
