Tag: police musical chairs

Surveillance chiefs to remain in service

Posted on By 3arabawy
From SS Officers

The National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority NTRA has reshuffled its board, and guess what? Not only did SS General Rushdi el-Qamari keep his post, as the interior ministry’s representative on its board, but also Tarek Kamel, Mubarak’s infamous minister of telecommunication, has joined! You can find both their names on the official website of NTRA.

What kind of sick musical chairs game is going on here? How can the orchestrators of Mubarak’s crackdown on telecommunication during the uprising be rewarded posts in the new revolutionary Egypt?

General Rushdi el-Qamari اللواء رشدي القمري

Posted on By 3arabawy

During the uprising, the regime took down the internet from the night of 27 January till 3 February, after blocking websites like Twitter and Facebook on the previous day. The government also took down the mobile phone networks and SMS, with the complicity of the three operators Mobinil, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat, as well as internet service providers like TEDATA.

The government body that orchestrated the blackout was the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA), headed by the former Telecommunication Minister Tarek Kamel (whose brother Cairo University President Hossam Kamel is currently the target of an impeachment campaign by faculty staff and student protesters over his ties to the Mubarak regime), together with representatives from the police, Mukhabarat and government officials.

From SS Officers

The Interior Ministry’s representative on the board of NTRA during the revolution was General Rushdi el-Qamari, whose profile pictures I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs.

Little I managed to find out about the career of General Rushdi Muhammad Sayyed Ahmad el-Qamari, before he became the head of the General Administration of Police Communications in July 2010. But usually heads of such sensitive departments in the interior ministry come from the ranks of State Security Police, especially as he assumed the membership of the NTRA board, sharing seats with the Mukhabarat.

Essam Sharaf’s cabinet has come out few days ago saying the regime’s shutting down of telecommunications was “inappropriate.” But has anyone been held accountable? What happened to NTRA board members, including General Qamari? Have they been investigated? Do they still keep their posts? Or are we continuing with the musical chairs game?

SS leaders remain in service

Posted on By 3arabawy
From SS Officers

State Security Police General Tarek Mahmoud el-Rakaybi, whom I blogged about previously, has not gone on trial. In fact, according to police sources, he remains the head of the General Police Directorate of Private Guards.

From SS Officers

Moreover, SS General Muhammad Abul Wafa whose picture seen above was among those I found on the SS Nasr City DVDs, has been moved from the dissolved agency, according to the police sources, to become el-Rakaybi’s deputy in the General Police Directorate of Private Guards.

From SS Officers

The same police sources also confirmed what was reported previously about SS General Hisham Abdel Fattah Abu Gheida, the last director of State Security Police, becoming the Interior Minister’s Assistant for Guards and Security Division. His son, Tarek, also a police officer, has been assigned a “very well paying job” in the police division in charge of the security of the Arab League, and was given a private car by the interior ministry–something unprecedented for officers in that division, added the sources.

The police musical chairs game continues.