Video clips of satirical content makers on social networking sites about the high prices in Egypt led their owners to imprisonment on charges of spreading false news, which sparked a wide interaction between their followers and activists on the communication sites.
And the Egyptian security forces arrested 3 people from the satirical “Golden El Ghalaba” page, which presents satirical videos about the price hike through the “Tik Tok” application, according to human rights pages and websites on social networking sites.
The State Security Prosecution charged them with spreading false news for criticizing the high prices in satirical clips.
Al-Manassa website quoted lawyer Islam Salama, who attended the interrogation sessions with the arrested, as saying that his clients were arrested in the city of Assiut, and the authorities transferred them to the State Security Prosecution in Cairo on Monday and Tuesday.
In response to some criticizing the "funny people" about the duck video, claiming that it mocks religion, they came out in another clip explaining that what they presented was aimed at ridiculing the high prices, and that they asked elders in Al-Azhar and they permitted what they offered, and the second video achieved greater views that exceeded 2 million Watch.
— The Platform (@Almanassa_AR) April 21, 2022
The Public Prosecution accused the arrested of spreading false news and ordered their detention for 15 days, and ordered their deportation to Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo.
No official statement has been issued by the Egyptian authorities so far, stating the arrest and imprisonment of "the poor people".
The three - who work in guarding real estate - set up a channel on the "Tik Tok" application with a fourth person, called "The Cuteness of the Ghalaba", through which they broadcast satirical videos, some of them about the high prices, which garnered millions of views.
Since the publication of the first clip at the end of 2020, the channel has received more than 410 thousand likes and more than 115 thousand followers, and the video clips have gone beyond the electronic application page to many social networking sites on the Internet such as "Facebook" and "Twitter", and others.
The Egyptian security forces arrested 3 content makers on the satirical page #Happy_Al-Ghalabah, which presents satirical videos of the crazy price hike on Tik Tok, and the State Security Prosecution charged them with publishing false news for criticizing the high prices in satirical clips.
pic.twitter.com/tTaA2ILN40
— DAWN Egypt (@DAWN__EGYPT) April 21, 2022
It is noteworthy that the number of fans and subscribers to the "Cute of the Ghalaba" page has increased by a few thousand since the news of their arrest and imprisonment was circulated, and a video called "Doaa Al-Bat" exceeded 10.9 million views, where the duck was the heroine of the incident.
And it helped the spread of these clips that content makers are from the general public from Assiut Governorate in Upper Egypt, and they do not have educational certificates, according to their lawyers, and they provide content from a rural environment in traditional Upper Egypt clothes and do not have any modern technical tools other than performing sarcastic songs on famous tunes close to the Egyptian street .
The "Gentlemen" presents their content in a simple way, free of any technical or production complications, to the smile of the simple people of Upper Egypt, but with a representative performance and sarcastic words that touch the reality of millions of Egyptians who suffer from high prices.
Recently, a wave of high prices of food commodities swept the Egyptian markets, which the government attributed to the crisis of the Russian war on Ukraine. The local currency (the pound) witnessed a decline of more than 17% of its value, affecting the purchasing power of many citizens.
On the tenth of this month, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced that annual inflation rose last March to 12.1%, compared to 4.8% for the same month the previous year, and consumer prices rose last month on a monthly basis by 2.4%.
The pioneers of social networking sites launched the hashtag #Cute_Ghalaba, in solidarity with the satirical content makers, after news of their arrest, and criticized the Egyptian authorities' targeting of content that reflects the nature of Egyptians who make fun of the daily problems and crises that befall them.
One of the tweeters commented on the news of the arrest of the "overlooked geniuses" that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke on more than one occasion about the high prices and acknowledged its existence, saying, "Does the colleague, the Deputy Public Prosecutor know, the source of the detention order, that the head of state himself also talked about the high prices and was not brought to trial on the accusation? itself".
According to government websites, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation issued 12 decisions to close and block some websites, accounts and pages on social media, YouTube channels, and an electronic application;
For violating media laws and standards and media or journalist codes of honor.
On charges of “spreading false news” .. Security forces in #Egypt arrest # Funny_Ghalaba after they published satirical clips about high prices via #Tik_Tok pic.twitter.com/Xe0hUunuyF
— Hashtag program (@ajmhashtag) April 21, 2022
It is noteworthy that in May 2016, the security forces threw a satirical “Street Children” band, which included young men, after they published lyrical video clips that mock and ridicule the political and social reality in the country, the most famous of which is “Oh, my love, Egypt, except for two islands,” in reference to At that time, the Egyptian authorities intended to cede the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Red Sea in accordance with the maritime border demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in 2016 and ratification later in 2017.
At that time, the Egyptian prosecutor charged a number of them with several accusations, such as incitement to demonstrate, publishing videos on the Internet that exposed state institutions, insulting the President of the Republic, and promoting ideas calling for terrorist acts, and decided to imprison them, according to what was published by local websites.