Cairo: an Assault on al-Arabi chief editor

The executive editor in Chief of the opposition Naserite "al-Arabi" newspaper Abdul Halim Qindil who is known as one of the opposition figure for "regime inheritance" and extension for the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for a fifth term of office was assaulted by unidentified persons yesterday at dawn and accused the minister of the interior of being behind the incident.

The attorney general Maher Abdul Wahid ordered to open an immediate investigation to the incident after the chairman of the Egyptian Journalists Union Jalal Aref and members of the union's council escorted Qindil upon filing an official notification on the assault.

Qindil said "while I was on my way back home after Sohour at 3 a.m at dawn and while approaching my house I was stopped by a car from which four men got out. They carried me to their car and covered my mouth and eyes so as I can not scream." He continued " the first thing they said that I have to stop talking about 'important people'. They took every thing I had including my glasses and mobile phone, put a knife on my neck and beat me, and one hour later they took off all my clothes and dropped me in a desert are outside Cairo." He said he has an internal bleeding in his right eye and wounds in the arms, the neck and the face.

In a prompt reaction, the Journalists Union called for a sit in in protest of the attack.