I haven’t had proper time to continue working on the Piggipedia files, but here is a face which popped up while I was reading some articles about torture, and I recalled having more pictures of the same officer on the SS Nasr City DVDs.

From SS Officers

SS Lt. Colonel Hani Talaat, also known as “Gaafar,” worked at the dissolved SS, as part of its “Central Investigations Unit.” His name was mentioned in the case of Sayyed Bilal’s death under torture, and reportedly still keeps his job at Homeland Security, the successor of SS.

From SS Officers

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 photos I found on the Nasr City SS DVDs, was that of General Hisham el-Dafrawi, the infamous director of the dissolved agency’s “Students Bureau” who made his career out of tormenting student activists.

Rights lawyer Gamal Eid, during his student activism days at Ain Shams University in the late ’80s, came in contact with Dafrawi when the latter was still a junior SS officer:

الرائد ، ثم المقدم !!!! وحتى اصبح اللواء هشام الدفراوي أو : الظالم المبتسم
هو الاتخن بين ضباط أمن الدولة ، وأكثرهم ضحكا وابتساما و … وحشية.
مسئول عن مكتب طلاب جامعة عين شمس في الثمانينات ، وكان المسئول والمخطط لواقعة الاعتداء على الطلاب اليساريين والناصريين في سجن أبو زعبل خلال الانتفاضة الفلسطينية الأولى 1987، على يد الجماعات الإسلامية !
26طالب يساري وناصري ، يطلق عليهم نحو 280إسلامي متشدد في السجن وتصوير الواقعة انها مشادة بين سجناء!
نظرا لقدرته الفذة على القمع وتلفيق القضايا ، تدرج حتى أصبح مسئول مكتب الطلاب في جهاز مباحث امن الدولة.
ومنذ تولي مكتب الطلاب المركزي ، بدئنا نشهد عمليات تلفيق القضايا الجنائية ” ضرب ، سرقة ، أداب … الخ” للطلاب اليساريين خاصة بجامعة عين شمس والقاهرة.
فضلا عن إهدار وتزوير كل الانتخابات الطلابية ، سواء عبر الضرب والحرمان أو الاعتقالات للطلاب المعارضين.
هشام الدفراوي لا يزال حرا !!

From an SS Major in charge of Ain Shams University in the 1980s, Dafrawi ascended the ranks quickly to become the general in directing the “Students Bureau.” He oversaw the rigging of student union elections, arrests, beatings and torture of student activists, Gamal Eid wrote me.

Dafrawi also, according to Gamal Eid, orchestrated the assault on 26 leftist and Nasserist students in Tora prison, on the hands of Islamist prisoners in 1987. The students were detained part of a crackdown on the solidarity movement with the Palestinian intifada. The incident was portrayed as some riot or scuffle between prisoners, but Eid asserts it was Dafrawi who persuaded the Islamist militant prisoners to attack “those leftists.” Dafrawi, moreover, enjoyed framing leftist student activists in Ain Shams and Cairo universities in criminal cases, according to Eid.

Dafrawi’s name was also mentioned in a corruption case related to the education ministry. He was among police officers, including General Ahmad el-Azzazi, who received financial rewards from then Education Minister Ahmad Zaki Badr, allocated from the education ministry’s budget, after they helped put down protests by the ministry’s civil servants on 16 January 2011, roughly one week before the outbreak of the revolution. Why not? Dafrawi and Badr, it seems were good friends, and were even hanging out at Amr Diab’s concerts!

So where is Dafrawi today? Is he part of the newly founded National Security Sector (NSS)? Is he still commanding those SS-turned-NSS who will continue spying on students in Cairo University and elsewhere?

In all cases, according to Eid, Dafrawi has not been put on trial and remains a free man. And this is not acceptable.

One of the papers, in English and headed Finfisher Proposal: Commercial Offer, contained an offer dated 29 June 2010 to provide “FinSpy” software, hardware, installation and training to the SSI for €287,000 (£255,000). The name on the invoice, dated Tuesday 29 June 2010, was Gamma International UK Limited.
Other documents, written in Arabic and marked “ultimately confidential”, state that after being offered a “free trial version” of Gamma’s Finfisher software to test its ability to hack into email accounts, the SSI concluded it was “a high-level security system” that could get into email accounts of Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, as well as allowing “full control” of the computers of “targeted elements”. It went on to describe the software’s “success in breaking through personal accounts on Skype network, which is considered the most secure method of communication used by members of the elements of the harmful activity because it is encrypted”.

Check out this set of paintings by Daisy Rockwell, inspired by the Egyptian revolution. The painting above is based on a photo I took during the storming of Nasr City State Security Police headquarters.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/5501632438/

“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.”

UPDATE: You can download the pictures here.

General Hassan Abdel Rahman, the infamous director of State Security police, who was replaced by General Hisham Abu Gheida on 2 March 2011. Both are reportedly now under house arrest. No official confirmation from the army.

Hisham Abu Gheida, the general who was second in command to Hassan Abdel Rahman, director of SS. Abu Gheida was named by the ousted PM Shafiq as the director of SS on 3 March. He is accused of ordering SS officers to burn sensitive documents implicating the agency in torture and corruption.

General Abu Gheida ordered and supervised my detention and torture, on 8 October 2000.

The above photo was found on a DVD in State Security Police Nasr City headquarters.