Spotlight: Egyptian doctors' anti-police protest turns political

The recent protest of Egyptian doctors and their demand of sacking the health minister over his silence on alleged police abuses have turned from a battle of the medical syndicate into a political scene.

Thousands of people gathered outside the doctors' syndicate in the capital Cairo on Friday to protest the assault of noncommissioned policemen against two Cairo doctors. However, not all the protesters were doctors. There were also political activists, human rights advocates and ex-presidential candidates.

"The scene was political rather than medical," Mohamed Aboul-Ghar, a physician and head of the Egyptian Democratic Social Party, said on the day after the massive assembly, adding that the scene included citizens, "who happened to be doctors," revolting for their dignity against police abuses.

The story goes back to late January when two young physicians claimed that they had been beaten and baselessly detained by noncommissioned policemen after refusing to fake a medical report for them at Cairo's Matariya hospital, a charge that has been denied by the involved policemen currently pending investigation.

Defying the anti-protest law, over which some leading liberal youth activists are currently detained and being tried, thousands gathered outside the syndicate on Friday and the assembly turned from a platform for doctors' demands to an opposition platform.

Amid absence of strong opposition since former military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi came to office, some non-medics, including leftist leader and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy and lawyer and activist Khaled Ali, found the doctors' assembly a free outlet to voice solidarity with doctors and opposition to police abuses that have reportedly been increasing over the past couple of years.

However, the police denied any claims of abuse or brutality and said that there is a conspiracy against security apparatuses to ruin the stability of the state, pointing fingers at the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group and former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military in July 2013 after mass protests against his one-year rule.

Since Morsi's ouster, terror attacks in Egypt killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, with most of them claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

"There is a plot that targets policemen through terrorism and defamation; attacking the police apparatus is meant to ruin the state," said Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar on Sunday, stressing that the plot seeks to amplify the police mistakes to drive a wedge between the police and the people.

"The policies of the Interior Ministry are earnest to make a real change in the security performance in a way that ensures the trust between the police and the citizens," the minister added.

Tackling the doctors' rally, the Egyptian media, mostly supporters of President Sisi, launched campaigns against doctors, highlighting their cases of medical mistakes and accusing them of being either conspirators or elements of the terrorist Brotherhood group.

The campaigns went on to the point that a zealous pro-Sisi TV anchor accused Mona Mina, a Christian leading medical syndicate member, of being inclined to the "Muslim Brotherhood. "This is not worth even a comment," Mina rhetorically commented.

The issue has been the focus of the Egyptian media and social media networks over the past few days, with some people voicing solidarity with the doctors against police violations and others accusing the protesting doctors of being traitors and Brotherhood-oriented.

Egypt has recently marked the national Police Day on Jan. 25, which coincides with the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising that removed former long-time leader Hosni Mubarak. The 2011 upheaval was sparked by a case of alleged police brutality that killed a young man in Alexandria. Endit