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Sunday, Mar 17, 2013 3:15 PM UTC

Egypt vigilantes hang 2 thieves in public

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Topics: From the Wires,

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian vigilantes beat two men accused of stealing a rickshaw, then stripped them half-naked and hung them from a tree in a bus station in a small Nile Delta town on Sunday, according to security officials who said both men died.

The killings came a week after the attorney general’s office encouraged civilians to arrest lawbreakers and hand them over to police.

It was one of the most extreme cases of vigilantism in two years of sharp deterioration in security following Egypt’s 2011 uprising. The worsening security coupled with a police strike prompted the attorney general’s call for citizen arrests last week.

The state-run newspaper Ahram reported on its website that the two were dragged in the street after being caught “red-handed” trying to steal a rickshaw. It said they were beaten but alive before they were hung.

Ahram reported that police were delayed from reaching the site of the hangings because residents had cut off the roads to protest a shortage of diesel few, one of Egypt’s many crises.

The scenes in the town of Samanod, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) north of Cairo, were emblematic of the chaos that is sweeping the country, mired in protests over a range of social, economic and political problems and with security breaking down to frightening proportions.

Security officials said those who tried to help free the two men were pushed back by others in a crowd in the small town, which is in the Nile Delta province of Gharabiya.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Similar attacks have happened elsewhere in Egypt, though vigilante killings are not frequent.

But citizens have grown bolder in taking matters into their own hands following the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak. The country’s once powerful and feared police force was left weakened after the revolt.

Egypt is embroiled in another wave of political unrest that has also engulfed the nation’s police force. Thousands of officers and low-ranking policemen have broken ranks, staging protests and waging strikes against what they say is the politicization of the force by President Mohammed Morsi and his interior minister.

Some of the striking police officers allege that the Brotherhood group is attempting to control them. The Brotherhood denies that.

Opponents of the attorney general’s call for citizen arrests fear that it is a prelude to the substitution of police by militias belonging to Morsi’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood group and other allied Islamist groups.

On Sunday, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who oversees the country’s police, met with officers and low-ranking policemen to hear their demands.

A statement from the ministry said Ibrahim thanked the police for their efforts. Two days earlier, Morsi attended traditional Islamic prayers at a Cairo-based camp for riot police where he praised the force despite public criticism over their violent response to anti-government demonstrations.

More By Aya Batrawy.

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