Net cafes must be monitored. Any activity has good and bad elements. There should be several restrictions such as a central control on material sent through the Internet that could be against Egyptian principles. The Vice Squad in the Ministry of the Interior should play a role in monitoring these net cafes. Rafat Radwan, engineer and chairman of the Information Center in the Cabinet. (1)

What is declared in the previous statement, had been already done:

. . . someone came and told me that the police assistant wanted me to go to him at 10 P.M. When I went, I found many people I know who own net cafes. "Do you have licenses?" the police assistant asked us. We answered, "No, but we could apply for licenses, Pasha." He said: "No problem, but I want you to take the visitors' photocopied IDs when they come to use the Internet at your cafes and also to see what web sites they visit on the net." We answered, "O.K." I began to ask visitors to give me a photo copy of their ID, but they refused and left. So I decided not to ask in order not to loose my customers. Mohammad, a Cairo net café owner, 2003 (2)

      The Internet in Egypt dates back to 1993. Egypt was one of the first Arab states to establish itself within the Information Age. Until the end of the 1990s the number of Internet users was limited and did not exceed 400,000 users. (3) In 2001, 1.55% of the Egyptian population had personal PCs. This percentage is the sixth highest amongst Arab States but still considerably lower than the world average of 8.42%.

     For every 1000 people in Egypt, there are .028 computers with access to the Internet, as compared to the world average of 23.27 connected PCs for every 1000 people. (4) When measured against Arab states, Egypt ranks fifth, preceded by the Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

      The number of Internet users in Egypt is now estimated to be nearly 3 million. The rapid growth in the number of users is a result of both the Free Internet Initiative taken by the Egyptian government in January 2002 as well as the ability of Egyptian consumers to purchase PCs by installation plan. This dramatic rise in Internet use has occurred in spite of the nearly 50% illiteracy rate in Egypt.

      Some sections of the Egyptian government have taken positive steps to increase the diversity and number of Internet users and to take advantage of the digital revolution in the field of economic development. However, the manner in which other sections of the government have chosen to deal with Internet users and regulate Internet use will render these positive steps ineffectual in reality.

      In early 2001, the Egyptian police started to crack down on Internet users. By the end of 2003, improper Internet use was being used as a justification for the increased prosecution of individuals from several different political groups along with Islamists, journalists, homosexuals, and political activists. Moreover, a new specialized police unit was founded under the general department of Information and Documentation, the "Department of Combat Crimes of Computers and Internet." The new unit is now known by the more simple title of "Internet Police"

      The first public appearance of the "Department of Combat Crimes of Computer and Internet" came on March 5th 2004 in the pages of the semi-governmental newspaper Al-Ahram. The department was mentioned in a news story about a computer programmer who was arrested for creating a web site defaming a famous official and his family. This was, however, merely the first public mention of the department-well before its name was published in Al-Ahram, the department was well known to its victims.

Prisoners of the Internet

• In June 2002, Al Sayda Zainab Misdemeanors Court sentenced Shohdy Naguib Sorour, the son of the late poet Naguib Sorour to a one-year prison term and a bail of EGP 200. Shohdy was condemned for the possession and dissemination of the political colloquial poem "Kosomiat" written by his late father in the early1970s. The court stated that the poem, which had been posted by Shohdy on the web site wadada.net, transgressed public morality.
  
  

     The case against Shohdy Naguib Sorur (Case Number 1412 for the year 2001, classified "Al-Sayda misdemeanors") was decided against Sorour on the basis of Article Number 178 of the penal code which criminalizes the possession of materials violating public morality with purposes of distribution, trafficking, or breaching morality.

      During the police investigation of the case, it was found that not only was Shohdy's PC not connected to the Internet but also that his PC's hard disk did not contain the poem in concern. The only piece of evidence found by the Vice Squad-and the only evidence that it seems was required for the successful prosecution of the case-was the hard copy of the poem in Shohdy's possession.

     Perhaps the police did not realize that Shohdy is Naguib Sorour's son. As the author's son it is perfectly ordinary that Shody should possess his father's poem, much like thousands of the poet's readers and fans possess this same poem by a poet renowned for his criticisms of the political situation.

The way Shohdy's case was handled implies several points:

- A literary text or a piece of art, no matter what tone it may take, should be dealt with from the perspective of literary criticism and not one of security.

- Current Egyptian legislation is unable to properly deal with recent developments in the field of publishing. For example, a person can create a website on a host in one country, publish the content while being in a second country, and be arrested by the security forces of a third country even if neither the laws of the country hosting the web site nor those of the country from which the content was posted criminalize the publishing of the posted material. These technical complexities can create doubts amongst the justices of the court hearing cases related to the Internet.

- Egyptian judicial professionals are not well informed about computers or the Internet. This situation necessitates the appointing of experts, as occurred in the case No 809 for the year 2003, classified "Emergency High State Security," and known as "the case of the revolutionary socialists group."

Ashram Ibrahim was charged with using the Internet to send false information to "foreign bodies" (meaning foreign human rights organizations) about human rights violations within Egypt.
In his original accusatory memo the officer did not clarify his source of information nor the nature of the alleged sent information. To do so would be tantamount to admitting that he monitored Ashraf's e-mails, thereby breaching Ashraf's right to privacy and breaking the law as he had not received have the proper warrant to do so.

     The prosecution did not attempt to verify the officer's unnamed source of information or to even investigate the nature of the alleged sent information. Nor did the prosecution notice that the officer had not received the proper authorization to wiretap Ashraf's calls or to monitor his e-mails.

     Throughout the duration of the case, in which Ashraf and the others four persons indicted were eventually declared innocent, the case file contained only some political papers printed out from some web sites. There was absolutely no proof given to support the officer's allegations.

On a website he runs from Holland, the Islamist activist Osama Rashed claims that one of the reasons for the detention of the Egyptian Islamist activist Salah Hashem is that he once e-mailed some Islamist leaders living abroad. The messages sent by Sala Hashem, an engineer charged for being a founder of an Islamic political group, contained evaluations of books issued by the historical leaders of the Islamist organization "Al Gama'a Al Islamiyya" who are currently detained in Egyptian prisons.(5) These books are known in English as The Intellectual Revisions (Al Moragaat Al Fekria)

On Thursday, June 5th 2004, twelve leaders of the Muslim Brothers in the Monifiya governorate were sentenced to 15 days imprisonment pending further investigation by the High State Security Prosecution. Among those imprisoned were several people who run a web site called "Egypt's Window." The web site contains the group's ideology, press releases, newsletters, and letters from its former general guide Ma'moun Al-Hudeiby." The proceedings of the interrogation stated that the Muslim Brothers used the Internet to chat with each other using the "Pal Talk" program, to post news about its leaders and the group's ideology, and to inform members of their assigned tasks. (6)

Banning, Confiscating and Imprisoning

Religion, sex, and politics constitute an unapproachable triangle of taboo in the Arab region. In Egypt, however, this triangle has become a square. Corruption has been added as the fourth taboo. Many have attempted to broach the issue of government corruption, and few of them have survived. The Internet offers new hope for the reopening the issue and casting new light upon it.

Ahmed Hareedy, an Egyptian journalist, created a website named "Al Methaq Al Araby" ("The Arab Chart"). The site contained articles critical of Egyptian syndicates. Publishing these articles on the Internet, as opposed to conventional print media, did not save Hareedy from being sentenced to 6 months imprisonment and a fine of EGP 7500. Hareedy attacked the constitutionality of the penal code articles related to the imprisonment of journalists and is now waiting for the constitutional court decree.(7)

According to the Elaph electronic newspaper, Essam Hanna Wahba was sentenced to a one-year prison term with labor on the charge of "disseminating abroad false news that could harm the state's national interests." Wahba was prosecuted before the Emergency High State Security Court. Wahba's case fell under the jurisdiction of this "exceptional court" because of the nature of Security's allegations against him.

      The damning evidence in Wahba's case was an e-mail he sent to the (FBI) Federal Bureau of Investigation saying that the life of David Walsh the American ambassador would be in danger if he visited Asyout on the 11th and 12th of December 2002. The question, though, is whether e-mail can be considered as a means of publishing? It is commonly accepted that to publish means to disseminate information widely for an unspecified audience. Given such a definition, an e-mail sent to one specific person or a number of persons could not be a means of publishing.(8)

Al Shaab newspaper was subjected to governmental restrictions two weeks ago. Egyptians are not able to log on to the web site inside Egypt due to an illegal ban executed by the ISPs taking their instructions from security bodies. It is easy to visit the newspaper's web site, through the proxy, which is a common Internet tool, for example you can log on through….."

Ever since the Egyptian government placed an illegal ban on their official web site alshaab.com and the alternative web-site alarabnews.com, the editors of Al Shaab have been running this paragraph in every issue of their print newspaper. This paragraph is published in every issue of the newspaper Al Shaab, which is "issued by the activity-deprived oppositional labor party," after the illegal banning of their official web site "alshaab.com" and the alternative web site "alarabnews.com." According to Al Shaab, the Internet ban was placed after the print Al Shaab itself was shut down for a period of a time a few years ago by the Egyptian government due to the newspaper's continuous attacks on government corruption. (9)

The Trap

     Egyptian police take advantage of the general social rejection of certain groups such as political dissidents, Islamists, homosexuals, and leftists to arrest members of these groups using illegal methods and procedures. Those who condone the arrest of these socially rejected groups, however, overlook the fact that every person has the right to legal protection, regardless of their social status.

     If this right should be waived for members of specific groups there would be no insurance that such illegal use of authority would not be extended and applied to everybody. Thus, the use of extra-legal methods in these cases is a perilous indication of future losses to come in basic legal and human rights.

     Many police officers think that the Internet is within their dominion. The legal phrase ". . . after obtaining the permission of the Public Prosecution" does not exist in the papers of the majority of cases related to the Internet. It is commonplace for police officers to observe, to arrest, and then to prosecute Internet users without considering whether the user has ever in fact broken any laws. Additionally, officers often employ illegal procedures in making such arrests.

      Since early 2001, till the end of 2003, some 46 men had been trapped through the Internet, arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of practicing sexual relations with other men.(10) The newspaper Al-Wafd stated that, in fact, more than 400 homosexual men who have been arrested in different places and through different websites. (11)

     Many victims interviewed by HRW recalled that they had been arrested after being trapped by a person called "Raoul." "Raoul" conversed with them in "chatrooms" and through "I seek a friend" ads. After maintaining on-line contact for a while, "Raoul" appoints a date and a place for a physical meeting; it was at this meeting that "Raoul's" victims find themselves arrested, charged with "debauchery," and placed in jail where they are the subjects of torture. (12)

     Though there is a difference between the numbers of the men arrested through the Internet cited by HRW and by Al Wafd, both sources agree on the method of entrapment: the Vice Squad's use of the pseudonym "Raoul" to snare Internet users who are perceived to be outlaws. (13)

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Footnotes
1. Islam online websites, 27/07/2000, accessed on 18/05/02
http://www.islamonline.net/iol-arabic/dowalia/alhadath2000-jul-27/alhadath7.asp
2. Interview by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information with "Mohammad," the pen name of a Cairo net café manager. April 14 2003.
3. "In A Time of Torture," report, accessed 26 March 2004.
www.hrw.org\arabic\reports\2004\eg-intime5.htm,
4. Rasha Moustafa Awad, Arab Magazine for Information and Sciences, July 2003, 15.
5. www.elmahrousa.net. Accessed July 19th 2002
6. Al Hayat, July 7 2003.
7. Al Araby, 19 February 2003; Press Release, The Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, February 19 2003.
8. Elaph web site, 29 January 2003
9. We have chosen not to reveal the address of Al Shaab alternative web site so as to not reveal it to state security. Accessed 22 March 2004.
10. "In A Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice In Egypt's Crackdown On Homosexual Conduct," HRW report, March 2004.
11. "Sex Crimes on the Net Under Crackdown," Al Wafd, 30 December 2004.
12. "In A Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice In Egypt's Crackdown On Homosexual Conduct," HRW report, March 2004.
13. "Sex Crimes on the Net Under Crackdown," Al Wafd, 30 December 2004.