The Egyptian community in Germany was not surprised by the disclosure of the presence of an employee involved in espionage for the benefit of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi's intelligence services. Rather, she considered that this activity was evident for years, and many Egyptians who were subjected to repression were killed if they returned to their homeland.
In a report published by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the writer Francesco Carrion says that since the coup that Sisi carried out seven years ago, the Egyptian embassy in Berlin has been a source of condemnation and fear from Egyptians who found in this country safe from the bloody repression of the ruling regime in their homeland.
"This matter was not surprising at all to all of us, and I do not think it is surprising to the German security services. He has now revealed the existence of this spy inside the government offices in Berlin, But for years, the fact that the Egyptian intelligence services were chasing us on German soil was ignored. "
After his arrest in Cairo, this activist was tortured, sentenced to two years in prison, and then he received a presidential pardon in 2016 and returned to Berlin, according to the El Mundo report.
The writer notes that the story of Saeed is not exceptional, as there are large numbers of Egyptians who have lived in Germany since 2013, and have come fleeing the ongoing crackdown that has thrown more than 60,000 opponents in prison, including politicians, journalists, lawyers and artists.
Stifling freedoms
The author adds that this repressive campaign of the Egyptian regime has stifled public freedoms and issued death sentences in mass trials that lack the lowest legal guarantees, which was condemned by human rights organizations.
He also says that the scandal of having paid spy from Cairo in the media office of Chancellor Angela Merkel surfaced last Thursday while presenting the annual report of the Internal Intelligence Agency, noting that this case - which was discovered last December - is currently under investigation in the Federal Prosecutor's Office .
The German Foreign Ministry confirmed that the information seen by this spy is related to a program that allows each German deputy to host 50 residents of his district to attend the parliament, and therefore he was not familiar with the list of journalists accredited to the government.
The author adds that the goal of this spy was to see the names of the reporters in Egypt. He was in contact with the Egyptian General Intelligence and the Internal Security Agency in Cairo.
Diplomatic cover
The writer pointed out that this report also warned of signs that Egyptian intelligence is seeking to recruit Egyptians living in Germany for intelligence purposes, during trips under the cover of diplomatic missions or during the visits of these citizens to Egypt, their country of origin.
He explains that the goal of this process was to collect information about opposition elements abroad, among them the Muslim Brotherhood activists, the most prominent political organization whose activity has been banned in Egypt although it is fully legal in western countries. Besides spying on liberals and leftists, and the Coptic Christian minority, which was a victim of extremism, violence and the absence of government protection.
The writer quotes the Egyptian lawyer and researcher, Mohamed El-Kashef, saying, "This information does not come as a surprise to those who follow the political scene and the Egyptian movement. The monitoring of the Egyptian intelligence operations in Berlin is very clear. In every event we organize, we meet people from the embassy who seek to investigate and listen to what On one occasion, we discovered the presence of a sanctuary that he admitted working for the benefit of the Egyptian authorities.
He points out that the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Berlin has been in the eye of the storm for years. Mada Masr news website, the last independent Egyptian media outlets that resist censorship, affirmed that the Egyptian community in Berlin condemned on several occasions the embassy practices that were imposing censorship on them and writing reports on their activities.
The writer added that many Egyptians in Germany were arrested upon their arrival at Cairo Airport. Among them is Ismail Al-Iskandarani, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a military court in 2018, for publishing false news about the Sinai Peninsula.
As of late 2019, the Egyptian ambassador to Berlin was Badr Abdel Ati, who was previously assigned the mission of the foreign ministry spokesman.
"As an Egyptian activist in Berlin, I witnessed Egyptian intelligence activities and their direct and clear interference. We talked about this years ago, especially after the security agreement between the two governments, which included carrying out training and security coordination operations," the writer quotes Saeed as saying.