Egyptian doctors gather outside their union in Cairo on Feb. 12, to protest against an alleged assault by policemen on two of their colleagues in a public hospital last month. (Mahmoud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of Egypt’s doctors protested police abuses on Friday following an alleged attack on two doctors by policemen in a Cairo hospital. It was a rare instance of public protest, almost unheard of since the takeover of power by Egyptian military strongman Abdel Fatah al-Sissi in 2013.

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As many as 4,000 doctors flocked to their union’s office to attend an emergency meeting called for by the Egyptian Medical Syndicate to condemn police violence. On Jan. 28, the union said, two police officers attacked two doctors and other hospital staff for “belittling” the injury of one of the officers in Matariya Public Hospital.

“Leave! Leave!” yelled the doctors in unison on Friday, calling for the resignation of the health minister, while many carried signs, one reading “The doctors of Egypt will not pay the price for the failure of your system.”

The union decided to begin a strike if the policemen who allegedly assaulted the doctors were not held accountable, and if their other demands, such as the closure of any hospital in which doctors are assaulted, were not met. They also decided to provide free services to all citizens for two weeks.

Egyptian doctors they shout anti-police slogans, during a protest in front of the headquarters of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate in Cairo, Feb. 12. (Hazem Abdel Hamid/EPA)

The doctors who were allegedly assaulted had filed a judicial complaint against the police officers. But after they issued a counter complaint, the doctors withdrew theirs for fear of being detained and abused at the Matariya police station. The station, according to a report by the Egyptian initiative for personal rights, is where 14 people have died in custody in the past two years, and where other instances of torture and ill treatment have allegedly occurred.

After the Jan. 28 incident, Matariya hospital staff went on a strike, demanding an investigation by the authorities. A few days later, public prosecutor Nabil Sadek ordered the doctors to reopen the hospital and end their strike.

In a statement, on Friday, the chairman of the doctor’s union, Hussein Khairy, called the turnout “historic,” hailing it as a “turning point in our union’s history” and demanding “rule of law.”

The protest amassed large public support with a Twitter hashtag #SupportDoctorssyndicate trending worldwide, with many social media users dubbing it “the doctor’s revolution.”