Our thoughts are with the Egyptian Interior Ministry. They have been “slandered” time and again of late, first by the bloggers, and now by traditional media. In what is being billed as El-Adly’s Videogate, the Interior Ministry is accused of police brutality and torture of civilians, with leaked videos to prove it.
The motto of Egyptian police has always been el-shorta fi khedmet el-sha`b, the Police is in the People’s service. I suppose, in Captain Islam Nabih’s mind, he was in Emad El-Kebir’s service when he sodomised him with a stick. It is not the most pleasant of services, but it is a service nonetheless.
Nor is it inconsistent with the motto when Egyptian police physically abuse anti-Government protestors and jail political opponents on false charges. They are providing a service, ummm, maintaining peace and calm on the streets!
And when they are not providing their services directly, they are outsourcing them to baltagiyyah (thugs), who take much more liberty in their “service” techniques.
One interesting outcome of this incident, however, is the rising influence of blogs and the effects they have on traditional media and ruling regimes. Given the almost impossible task of silencing bloggers, it will be interesting to see how the Egyptian Government ultimately conducts itself.
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Columbia Journalist Review have an interesting article on the growth and increasing importance of Arab bloggers.
I thought the following was interesting in terms of how Egypt is dealing with bloggers: Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Suleiman has been sentenced to four years in prison. He’s said some pretty bad stuff about Islam, Muslims and the President, but what it’s interesting is that he is the first to be imprisoned (not just arrested).
See here
I can’t help thinking there is a bit of selective outrage about the West’s reaction to Suleiman’s imprisonment. For example, we didn’t hear much complaint when the Egyptians went after the private property of Muslim Brotherhood members.
As Marc Lynch put it:
It is not surprising that the Interior Ministry would eventually resort to the approach with which they are most familiar. Intimidation, assault, arrests, torture, and imprisonments have all worked for them in the past. If anything, this is indicative that they will handle things in the traditional fashion until they can no longer afford to.
My guess is that more and more critical blogs will surface, anonymously if need be, until they can no longer dream of containing the situation. At that point, they will probably consider Chinese-style Internet censorship, if they are really serious.
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