A masked force claimed to belong to the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS (broke into a café today at 8:30 am and detained a number of customers and café workers without disclosing location of their detention or whether proper legal measures were taken against them. On Friday and Saturday, 11 and 12 January, the café was closed by the said elements.

The café administration held the regime responsible for the safety of its workers and all other detainees and condemned what it described as barbaric manner of detention, violence and intimidation of citizens. It added that the responsibility of organized forces is to protect the people and their property rather than assaulting and intimidating them. “If these elements belong to the organized forces then we condemn their behavior and if they do not belong to organized forces we hold the regime responsible for failing to protect citizens and their property, because in both cases the regime is responsible for safety of the citizens,” the administration said. According to Alrakoba, the coffee shop is one of the awareness and education projects, it is the idea of journalist and activist Mr. Wiaam Shoqi.

Source: Alrakoba