(Photo courtesy of Misr Al-Qawia Party)
By: Nourhan Dakroury
Two members of the Misr Al-Qawia Party were released from prosecution on Saturday after being accused of “stirring trouble” in a neighbourhood in Alexandria, according to Ingy Al-Manshy, member of the party in Alexandria.
In their statement, the party accused the police of being an obstacle in the party’s way and preventing them from fulfilling their duties of serving the community.
Party member Youssef Al-Qadi said that the incident began when he went to Al-Attareen neighbourhood on Friday after he had heard about the collapse of a building there. After the collapse, authorities ordered the evacuation of five other buildings in the area, since they thought that there was a chance that they would collapse as well, according to Al-Qadi.
“We found the people living on the street with their belongings and furniture, since the state failed to provide them with care,” Al-Qadi said. The residents asked the Misr Al-Qawia Party member to bring an engineering consultant to examine the evacuated buildings.
Mahmoud Al-Touny, another party member, came accordingly to the neighbourhood to examine the buildings, concluding that he cannot determine whether the building should be evacuated yet, since he needs to further examine them, according to Al-Qadi.
When Al-Touny expressed his opinion to police officers in the neighbourhood, both members were taken to the police station, accused of “stirring trouble”.
In the Misr Al-Qawia Party’s statement, Al-Touny ridiculed the accusation, asking what “stirring trouble” is supposed to mean. The party also demanded institutions do their jobs and address the needs of the people of the neighbourhood who lost their homes in the collapse.
The party also demanded the removal of the governor of Alexandria, his deputy and everyone who was involved in the detention of its party members, according to the statement.
Officials from the Alexandria governorate said they were unaware of what happened to the party members.
