The military also failed to protect the protesters from attacks by armed groups in the early morning hours of May 2, at the same demonstration, which began on April 27 in Cairo’s Abbasiyya neighborhood who  gathered i to protest the Supreme Presidential Election Commission’s exclusion of Hazem Abu Ismail as a presidential candidate.

In response to the violence against protesters on May 2, thousands gathered on May 4 in Abbasiyya, near the Defense Ministry. One day before, at a televised news conference ,  Gen. Mokhtar al-Molla, a member of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), said: “We have positioned the military to prevent people from approaching the Ministry of Defense. We are protecting them from themselves because if anyone comes near the Ministry of Defense we have a right of legitimate self-defense.”

On May 4, after the protest turned violent, military officers arrested at least 350 protesters, including 10 children and 16 women, accoridng to a report by HRW. They were brought before military prosecutors, who ordered their detention pending trials before military courts. At least 256 remain in detention. Human Rights Watch interviewed many of those who had been released, who gave reliable accounts of torture and beatings during arrest and in detention.

“The brutal beating of both men and women protesters shows that military officers have no sense of limits on what they can do,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

A video taken by Rasd News Network clearly shows military police beating protesters with batons and sticks as they arrest them.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 16 men and women who stated they were tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military officers. The military has not investigated or punished these incidents or similar incidents before despite promises to do so.

In an interview with HRW Abdel Hamid Mekkawy, who had been protesting in response to the May 4 arrests, along with dozens of others who were chanting anti-military slogans, when military officers arrested him along with nine others said after he was arrested:  ”When they first took me inside the military base they started beating me with sticks and with the end of a gun in my back. They beat me for around an hour.”

“They hit me in the kidneys; everywhere on my body with sticks and with their fists and they kicked me,” he added.

“Egyptians won’t feel secure until there is a law enforcement system they can trust to police demonstrations effectively and protect them from attacks by thugs,” Joe Stork said. “And they won’t feel secure as long as the military beats and tortures people it arrests and then brings them before military courts.”