Abdullah Hamed-Cairo
Because the need is the mother of invention, the Egyptians are trading tips and advice for a safe walk in the streets and squares, with the spread of panic about arrest and search of belongings and mobile phones in police ambushes that fill the streets and squares after protests in Cairo and the provinces late last month.
Security checkpoints have not been new to Egyptians, but they are not used to such a violation of privacy and thus lack of security, since the capital and Egyptian cities witnessed rare demonstrations on September 20 last year demanding the departure of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi from power.
Hala says she fears arrest if she walks on the street and is being searched by her mobile phone, which contains scenes of her photojournalism, which could "not be understood by the informants on the streets."
So Hala landed from her news site in downtown Cairo, where the ambushes were heavily deployed to use the nearest taxi, but her misfortune led her to a checkpoint that stopped the cars. The officer asked the taxi driver to come down to search the car, then asked her to prove her identity and her mobile phone. Her press card was allowed to pass without inspection.
The press is a crime
Hala, who declined to give her full name as a precaution, was better fortunate than journalist Nasser Abdel Hafiz, who was surprised by a campaign of officers and informants who stopped bystanders and searched their belongings and phones. In a police car, journalists later reported that the officers thought he was on a press mission to cover the protests in downtown Cairo.
Although Nasser asked officers to search his mobile phone and Facebook account to make sure he was not an opponent but a supporter of the regime, no one paid attention.
Abdelhafid spent 15 days in prison pending investigation before being released by the authorities recently among hundreds who accused or suspected of participating in the demonstrations called by Mohamed Ali, who has worked as an army contractor for several years, before turning to the opposition recently and broadcasting videos revealing the facts of El Sisi's corruption. And his family and a number of army commanders.
As for Amr, a pseudonym for a lawyer working for a human rights organization, he deliberately walks down the street between cars on his right and north, avoiding the sidewalks for fear of suddenly emerging among the buildings informants who stop him to search him, adding to Al Jazeera Net that "the danger of cars is less than the danger of security."
Despite this extreme caution, he says that the police stopped him in a field in downtown Cairo, and the officer asked him his original phone and "not the one intended to mislead the police," according to the officer, according to Amr, and did not reassure the officer only after self-search, only to find that he only carries his primitive phone .
Security Maps
Shirin, an engineer, was surprised by the driver of the taxi she was taking on a different route from what she used to every time. Supporters of the January Revolution feared arrest and search the phone.
Shirin learned that it is common among taxi drivers and even public transport taxis, and the most popular application used for this is Google Maps.
Not only before he left his home - a student - Mohammed wiped out all communication and mail applications from his phone, but also resisted all attempts to lure political talk taking place on public transport and streets, after reading to activists on Facebook that police informants tried to develop performance to inflict youth By claiming that they are handicapped or blind, they are asking passers-by, especially young people, to cross the street, and then start provoking them with criticism of the regime.
Youth is a preferred target for the police, as this age group represents the majority of the Egyptian people and is the most serious concern for the authorities.
Doaa Mustafa warned the rights of everyone to walk in the streets or overnight in the houses alone so that there is evidence of the kidnapping, which is necessarily followed by enforced disappearance for days or months, so that parents and lawyers can try to trace the detainee.
A statement by the National Council for Human Rights (Hukoomi) criticized the indiscriminate arrests of young people in the streets and squares and the subsequent inspection of their belongings, especially their mobile phones, stressing that this is contrary to laws and human rights, and quickly issued a counter statement from the Ministry of Interior denying the occurrence of these allegations. The statement affirms that the Ministry is keen to follow the laws during the arrest of citizens in the streets and squares.