A video that was shot in June by one of the striking Petrojet workers, where Brigadier General Mamdouh Abbas of the military police is threatening the protesters with seven years in prison. Five workers were detained that day and taken to prison, before a military tribunal handed down a suspended one-year prison sentence.

I went today to pay my Mobinil monthly bill at their Abbas el-Akkad Street branch. The shop has been fortified with iron bars that cover the glass windows. Inside the shop, now there is an armed private security guard holding a baton, watching the customers nervously and making everyone around him nervous too!

Two days ago, my car ran out of gas in Heliopolis, near Triumph Square. I walked to a nearby Misr gas station, trying to buy few liters in a plastic container to carry back to the car. It wasn’t easy. I had to negotiate with the workers, who told me there were orders from the government not to sell gas in any containers lest people use it to make Molotov cocktails. In the end, the shift supervisor at the gas station sent one of the workers with me to the car to make sure I wasn’t lying.

Amr L’Assar is a State Security Police general whose photos I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs. I don’t have information about his previous work with SS, but he’s now part of the newly founded National Security Sector’s Public Relations Department.

One of the sets of photos I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs, was that of General Mortada Ibrahim. The general hails from a powerful Upper Egyptian family, accused by some of using the general’s influence to grab more land.

From SS Officers

General Ibrahim was promoted in 2004 to become the Interior Minister’s Assistant, heading إدارة المساعدات الفنية the “Technical Assistance Department.” This department is in charge of surveillance, phone tapping of citizens, dissidents and government officials alike. The infamous reputation of this department reached the extent that the state-run Akhbar el-Youm reported (after the revolution of course) a conversation between General Ibrahim and another senior police official, whereby General Ibrahim said: “I listen to your breathing, even when I’m asleep.”

From SS Officers

Instead of putting him on trial for running this fearsome apparatus that invaded the private lives of millions of Egyptian citizens a day, General Ibrahim has been rewarded by Essam Sharaf’s cabinet a new post in the “revolutionary government” as the Interior Minister’s Assistant for Research and Planning.

The police musical chairs little game continues.

State Security Police General Tarek Mahmoud el-Rakaybi, whose photos I found on the SS DVDs, was one of the senior officials in the agency, before he was promoted in 2009 by General Habib el-Adly, the interior minister, to head the General Police Directorate of Private Guards, which provides bodyguards to govt officials and important business facilities. When the service provided to facilities, the directorate used to impose financial sums of money on the business, though it’s the duty already of the police to protect public security and that includes any facilities. In previous interviews I conducted with retired Brigadier General Mahmoud el-Qutri, he described this directorate as “the goose that lays the golden eggs” for the interior ministry.

El-Rakaybi’s is accused in a financial corruption scandal, where he as well as other SS officers including Hisham Abu Gheida, were receiving illicit sums of money from the ministry of trade and industry that amount to LE147,000 on a bimonthly basis.

Photos of el-Rakaybi were censored by Flickr, but I uploaded them here.

“The dissolving of the state security is a victory,” el-Hamalawy continues, “but it does not mean there will be no more torture in Egypt. There were many different elements of the security forces implicated in crimes under the previous regime, right down to the traffic police. The dissolving of the state security comes as a direct response to the pressure on the streets, and we are sending a clear message to the heads of all elements of the security forces; if you are responsible for the torture of citizens, you will face similar demonstrations and your offices will be occupied. The people will not be silent any longer.”