An AFP photographer was attacked Tuesday by a gang of men who said they were working for the police outside a polling station south of Cairo where an Islamist candidate was running for parliament.
Marwan Naamani said his car was surrounded by a gang of around 50 men in civilian clothes, one of whom punched him in the head before pulling him out of the vehicle and tearing away his camera bag.
Police and other security forces stood by without intervening as the photographer was roughed up outside a polling station in the Hawamdeya district.
A police officer later returned Naamani's equipment, telling him that the men were "thieves who have been arrested."
The people who attacked Naamani later told another AFP journalist at the scene that they had been hired by the police as informers.
Entrances to the main road in Hawamdiya, which leads to three polling stations, were closed off by metal barricades where riot police were deployed.
Numerous voters were not allowed to pass through, an AFP reporter said.
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which is fielding a candidate, Abul Alaa al-Qarani, in the district, has said the security clampdown is aimed at preventing its supporters from voting.
Qarani told AFP he had also been beaten by men in civilian clothes while he tried to pass through the barricade.
The Brotherhood was contending seven seats in the final day of Egypt's month long elections to parliament – CAIRO (AFP)
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