:PROPERTIES:
:ID: aaef0a9c-46f0-450d-909e-37860e153fc6
:END:
#+title: 2015-09-16

* Threat brief :@personal:
:PROPERTIES:
:CREATED: [2015-09-16 Wed 10:40]
:MODIFIED: [2015-09-16 Wed 11:32]
:IMPORTED: [2023-02-08 Wed 19:22]
:END:

On 13 August 2015 at 20:00, I started receiving text messages on my phone that threatening harm and exposure. The messages, which continued for a week and averaged one a day, are related to my past activism before and during the uprising in 2011, to my personal life and my family, and to a lesser degree to my human rights work. After stopping on 21 August, the threats returned on 25 August, informing me a several complaints against me have been lodged at the office of the general prosecutor. Another message on 27 August said that investigations have begun and I should be expecting to land in jail soon. I left Egypt in the early hours of 28 August.

These threats are not the first I received. Starting February 2011, my name, pictures and other information about myself, true or fabricated, were circulating on the internet and eventually into television talk shows. I have been called a traitor, a spy, a friend of an Israeli, who was charged and condemned with spying. The campaign led to my forced disappearance on 23 July 2011 (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2011/07/fears-egyptian-activist-after-attack-protest-march/). Both the police and the prosecutor failed to investigate my complaints against my kidnappers, some of whom appeared on television to speak about the incident.

This has not been the first incident where the authorities fail to be neutral and uphold due process. Between the years 2007-2010, I was involved in a series of lawsuits on the background of a blog post I wrote about a senior corrupt judge. The lawsuits included one trying to force the government to block my blog and 47 other news outlets and websites of human rights organisations that wrote on the issue, and my lawyers were accused of blackmail. I am technically still released on bail after seven years. Amnesty International, of which I was an employee at the time, and other organisations have monitored the trials (https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/07/18098/).

With help back home, I am still trying to figure out the seriousness of the current threats, although my experience of 2011 tells me that what may start small can escalate very quickly and dangerously. While it is not uncommon for legal proceedings to be unfair in Egypt, there is a real threat related to my human rights work. My research and advocacy in digital privacy and surveillance, either as Civil Liberties Director in the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights between 2011 and 2013, or afterwards as an independent researcher, involved releasing documents taken out of State Security Investigations HQ in March 2011 that showed the SSI's interest in purchasing surveillance systems from the British-German firm Gamma International (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/28/egypt-spying-software-gamma-finfisher). As far as I know, I am the only person whose name is linked to publishing of specific documents, which is potentially dangerous if the state decides to prosecute based an often discussed investigation in the media, known as "Case 250", which is reportedly about releasing state secrets out of SSI HQ.
