By Tamim Elyan
CAIRO: A 35-year-old employee attempted to set himself ablaze Wednesday morning in front of the Cairo governor’s office but was prevented by security before he caught fire.
Hazem Abdel Fattah, an employee at Mostorod Water Company, said during preliminary investigations that he had problems with his employer.
Opposition and human rights activists said that repeated attempts of self-immolation is a warning sign for the government of a spontaneous angry outburst if living conditions do not improve.
Egypt has witnessed six attempts this week, three in front of the People’s Assembly and one in Alexandria, which resulted in death.
Mohamed Ashour, 53 and a security employee at EgyptAir, attempted to set himself on fire Tuesday in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate but was prevented by security and journalists present at the scene.
He said he had financial problems at work and filed a complaint to the presidential office and was promised a resolution.
In Alexandria, Ahmed Hashem El-Sayed, a 25-year-old unemployed man died in the hospital suffering from third degree burns, after he set himself on fire on the roof of his home Tuesday. He had been unemployed for a year and suffered from depression, officials said.
Abdou Abdel Moneim, a restaurant owner from Ismailia, set himself ablaze on Monday in front of the PA protesting a government policy preventing restaurant owners from buying cheap subsidized bread to resell to their patrons. He was released from Mounira hospital on Wednesday.
Mohamed Hassan, a 50-year-old lawyer, who set himself on fire Tuesday in front of the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center near the PA, was set to be released from the hospital today, according to Mohamed, Shawky, manager of Mounira hospital where Hassan was admitted.
Hassan said during investigations that he attempted to commit suicide when his daughter fled home after she got involved in a love affair with a young man without his consent. He also said he was facing debts that lead him to sell a store he owned.
An unidentified man also attempted to set himself ablaza on Tuesday in front of the PA but was stopped.
Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi had set himself on fire last month, triggering a series of protests throughout the country that eventually led President Zein El-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country last Friday.
Karam Saber, head of Children of Earth center for human rights, said that “tough social and economic living conditions” are the reason behind these attempts.
“The conditions are deteriorating and economic and social rights are being abused by the government that people prefer to die,” he said.
“The Egyptian people are always keen on maintaining the status quo by nature but if the government doesn’t get the message from what’s happening, everyone will pay the price,” Saber said.
The recently established “Popular Parliament,” formed of former opposition MPs and public figures, said in a statement that these attempts disprove all “governmental claims of economic development.”
The statement called on the Egyptian people to unite in order to impose change and establish a political system capable of facing the country’s challenges.
“Suicide attempts have been very common in the Egyptian society, but what happened in Tunisia cued a sign for people to take action,” said George Ishaq, member of the National Association for Change (NAC).
“The repetition of these incidents indicates a warning sign for the government, which is carelessly watching, that the people are on the verge of a spontaneous explosion,” Ishaq said.
However, he ruled out the possibility of a similar scenario to what happened in Tunisia and expressed concerns of the consequences of “haphazard chaos.”
Tahra Al-Maghraby, professor of criminal psychology at Cairo University’s faculty of arts, said that distress can be expressed through other healthier means and said the problem was hyped by the media.
“Suicide is an odd incident in any society and is a psychological problem,” she said.
“It’s the responsibility of those who are close to these people to treat them psychologically before the patient’s state gets worse,” Al-Maghraby explained.
Al-Azhar released a statement Wednesday saying that Islam bans suicide for any reason, AFP reported.
“Sharia law states that Islam categorically forbids suicide for any reason and does not accept the separation of souls from bodies as an expression of stress, anger or protest,” said Al-Azhar’s spokesman Mohammed Rifa Al-Tahtawi in a statement to state news agency MENA.
Similar incidents of self-immolation were reported in Algeria and Mauritania this week.
Two people in Algeria set themselves on fire Wednesday, bringing the total number of attempted public suicides to seven in a week. A woman in Algeria became the sixth person in a week in the country to set herself on fire.
In Mauritania, a man set himself ablaze in front of the parliament, however he survived the suicide attempt.
In the statement, Al-Tahtawi said, “Al-Azhar cannot comment on the cases of people who had burned themselves, as these may be suffering from a mental or psychological condition that forced them to do so. “We cannot judge them. We commend them to God and pray for them.” –Additional reporting by AFP.
