Police in Sharqiya shut down the governorate’s security department and many of its police stations Wednesday after Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin suspended six officers for a month.

The Minister's decision sparked outrage among the officers’ colleagues, prompting hundreds of them to start a sit-in and shut down police stations.

Mansour Abu Gabal, head of the General Union of Police Authority Members in Sharqiya and one of those suspended by the minister, said that the suspension was retaliation for a strike organized Tuesday in solidarity with Sharqiya’s Civil Defense Department employees, who were demanding their training bonuses.

Abu Gabal added that four Civil Defense Department employees and two union members were suspended.

He also said that the rest of the governorate’s police stations will be shut down, along with the several stations in Zagazig and 10th of Ramadan City.

The suspension was announced by Sharqiya Police Department head Mohamed Kamal Galal, who then assigned two groups of Central Security Forces to break up the sit-ins.

An anonymous security source said that Central Security Forces are stationed near the Zagazig security department, along with four vehicles filled with soldiers.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm