Egypt police protest for better pay, work conditions

Scores of policemen have staged demonstrations in Egypt’s Nile Delta to demand better pay in a rare show of protest since President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi came to power last year.

Protesters closed six police stations in the province of Sharqiya as part of demonstrations that began on Saturday to demand better pay and working conditions.

On Sunday, demonstrating policemen broke into Sharqiya’s security directorate to protest the authorities’ failure thus far to meet their demands.

“Protesters stormed the security directorate after [officials] called in riot police to disperse them,” a security source told Anadolu Agency.

Angry policemen smashed the directorate’s windows, while riot police used tear gas to disperse them, according to an Anadolu Agency reporter.

The Interior Ministry, for its part, accused protesting police of being funded by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group – a claim dismissed by the protesters.

Since the 2013 ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a Brotherhood leader, Egyptian authorities have mounted a harsh crackdown on the group, arresting its entire leadership.

In late 2013, the government also designated the group a “terrorist organization”.

A controversial law issued in late 2013 outlawed all unlicensed protest activity in Egypt