Cairo has
released some 200 Bedouins since Interior Minister Habib El-Adly met with
tribal leaders in July to explore ways of bringing calm to the area, the
sources said.
Bedouins,
among nomadic Arab tribes in the Sinai, often complain of neglect by the Cairo
government and say tough living conditions have led some of their people to
resort to smuggling and other activities considered criminal by the state.
In June,
tribesmen angry at heavy-handed security tactics set tires ablaze near a
pipeline supplying natural gas to Syria and Jordan. The state responded with a
change in tactics, including the release of some detained Bedouin.
But some
unrest has continued. Armed and masked Bedouin tribesmen hijacked a bus in late
July from an industrial area in central Sinai.
The
latest decision to free detainees coincided with Eid Al-Fitr, which ends the
Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and "in the framework of the efforts
being made to free all Bedouin detainees," the official Middle East News
Agency (MENA) said.
About 400
Bedouin remain in jail, many of whom were detained under Egypt's emergency law
instituted after Islamist militants assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981
and which allows detention without charges for indefinite periods.
Police
rounded up thousands of Bedouin after a series of bombings at tourist resorts
in south Sinai in 2004-06.
