Egyptian journalists nabbed in police raid

When Cairo police on Sunday arrested two journalists who had voiced their distrust of and disgust with the current administration, it was at once an “unprecedented violation of law,” according to their employer, and a sign that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was fed up with constantly being ripped in the media.

Although the fact that the two scribes were taken into custody during an ostensibly peaceful sit-in at the Press Syndicate’s union hall is rather novel, that they were targeted at all is pretty much business as usual in Egypt nowadays.

The arresting officers served Amr Badr and Mahmoud El-Sakka with warrants. The charge? Criticism of the government. Specifically, they had expressed displeasure with Sisi’s agreement to transfer the sovereignty of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. While thousands of other Egyptians have also denounced the deal, Sisi has not thrown all of them in jail -- yet.

But his crackdown on dissent has severely cut into the average citizen’s sense of freedom, especially amid reports that security forces now feel empowered to do as they please with alleged lawbreakers – even to the point of torture.

In the case of Badr and El-Sakka, there is also disagreement as to the sequence and magnitude of events. Yehia Qallash, head of the Press Syndicate, insists that no fewer than 50 officers “stormed” the building. Minister of the Interior Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, essentially Egypt’s top cop, claims there were only eight officers and objects to the use of the word “stormed.” Qallash, in turn, is calling for Ghaffar’s resignation over the incident and for a new sit-in at the same site to protest alleged manhandling of the press.

In 2013, a panel at the Blouin Creative Leadership Summit discussed the future of media and what technological advances might mean for the democratization and spread of information, particularly following the Arab Spring, when there was an “urgency on the ground to recount a local perspective.” It is clear, however, that in Egypt this urgency is being checked by the government’s desire to silence its critics.