Thousands of inmates escape jails in Egypt turmoil

Article

CAIRO – Thousands of inmates escaped prisons across Egypt on Sunday, including at least one jail that housed Muslim militants northwest of Cairo, security officials said.

The security officials said the prisoners escaped overnight from four jails after starting fires and clashing with guards. The inmates were helped by gangs of armed men who attacked the prisons, firing at guards in gun battles that lasted hours.

The vacuum left by the police has promoted residents to form neighborhood protection groups, armed with firearms, sticks and clubs to set up self-styled checkpoints and barricades to ward off looting gangs roaming Cairo and other cities.

Thousands of inmates have escaped. The article is pretty brief. It dosent really say how many "muslim militants" were released. What kind of "Muslim militants"? Im not sure. What other inmates? Im not sure.

If the gun battles did really last for hours, then I would assume that the inmates escaped were pretty hardcore criminals if the prison guards fought for hours.

Well, this is one of the unintended consequences during an unplanned and unorganized violent revolt. First you had looting and destroying of artifacts, and now you have the escape of prisoners. When the system fails, it all fails, the bad parts and the good parts. I would assume we will start to see utilites start to shut down as well anytime soon as workers flee in fear of their lives.


Which is why I don't suppor that course of action. Egypt will be worse off after all the dust clears.

If the citizens want to kick a corrupt ruler out, im all for that. There are unintended consequences, like the inmate escapes though.

I dont really know the laws in Egypt, or what kind of offenders were in the jails though. The article isnt really that specific. It leaves a bit open to speculation. What if these escapee's were government dissidents? What if the protesters freed a bunch of captives that were illegally detained?

But what if these were rapists, murderers, and those kind of people? What if the government just released this article as another way to spread fear into the population? - (Murders, rapists, and the like are all on the loose because of the protests.)

I think we would have to wait until specifics come out about the inmates escpaed.

Well if this statement is true then i seriously doubt they were all "illegally detained captives." Even though, as it states, that can't be proven. I would still assume that many, if not most, did deserve to be imprisoned.

Rumours were rife with reports of escaped convicts running through the streets. State television reported at least 60 rape cases during the unrest but it was impossible to confirm that.

www.huffingtonpost.com...
From the looks of things, this is still the beginning of what is only to become a much uglier story.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


That article does paint a pretty ugly picture.

"There are no police to be found anywhere," said Ghadeer, 23, from an upscale neighbourhood. "Doormen and young boys from their neighbourhoods are standing outside holding sticks, razors and other weapons to prevent people from coming in."

"Our jobs are done and over. There are thugs everywhere, ransacking our shops," Saleh Salem, a shop owner in central Cairo. "Since the government is not doing it, we are sending down our boys to create human shields to fight the criminals."

Unintended consquences. This should be something future protesters recognize not to do, if this is really true.