Is the security apparatus being dragged into an essentially political debate, asks Magda El-Ghitany The detention of opposition activists during and in the aftermath of the 6 April strike came as no surprise. Many pundits now believe the security apparatus has adopted a strategy of seeking to head off protests by detaining opposition activists whether or not they are actively involved in the planning of demonstrations. Although security-oriented solutions are not always a bad idea and might be necessary in some cases, they can never in themselves solve political or socio-economic challenges, says Yehia El-Gamal, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University and former chairman of the Liberal Democratic Front. The detentions of 6 April are far from new. They are not the first, and certainly will not be the last. They are an example of the security-oriented mind set of the state in dealing with any crisis situation caused by socio- economic or political conditions, says historian Qassem Abdu. Last week opposition activists, including Kifaya leader George Ishaq, Mohamed Abdel-Qoddous and Esraa Abdel-Fattah, the founder of the Facebook group 6 April A Nationwide Strike, were detained briefly along with 300 others, the majority from Mahala. They were all accused of inciting violence. After two days Ishaq was released on bail while Abdel-Fattah was out on Monday. Abdel-Qoddous was released on the same day of his arrest. Despite the rapid release of Ishaq and Abdel-Fattah and the announcement by Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud that most of the remaining detainees would be freed shortly, the mass detentions, say some observers, have served to highlight the states reliance on security forces to deal with symptoms of economic unrest rather than tackle their root causes. Security forces, they say, are now the main tool employed by the state to brush the challenges it faces beneath the carpet. El-Gamal believes the 6 April arrests expose how the ruling system now sees security as its only available response to Egypts problems. The response to the strike, says El-Gamal, is proof that we are in an urgent need of a new political mind set. Human rights activist Bahieddin Hassan believes using the security apparatus to end any expression of public dissatisfaction with government policies is a calculated political decision while Cairo University political science professor Hazem Hosni says the state is banking on the apparatus to protect its political and socio-economic policies in the face of public dissatisfaction that increasingly bounds on fury. Because it is not the normal function [of the security apparatus] to either maintain such policies or solve socio- economic issues, expanding their role in dealing with such issues only makes matters worse since it cannot ease the conditions that drive the public to protest in the first place. The statement issued by the Interior Ministry on the eve of the 6 April strike threatening immediate and firm action against any protests backfired, argues Hosni. It only reinforced peoples impression that no one is listening to them, that the state does not care about their economic suffering and only wants to maintain order by using force and aggression. Using security forces to halt potential protests is hardly a recent invention. During the 1970s, Hosni points out, security forces were if anything more aggressive in dealing with the opposition and any attempt at civil disobedience. However, in the 1970s, he believes, detentions were justified. There was relatively clear evidence that detainees were involved in organising protests, whereas now, he says, detentions are carried out for different reasons. The ruling system, Hosni contends, uses incidents like the strike to complete its unfinished business with the Muslim Brotherhood. I do not see any clear evidence to justify attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood or accusations that it fuelled the 6 April strike. How could a girl like Esraa Abdel-Fattah, whose only crime was to call on people to stay at home on 6 April, be accused of inciting violence? he asks. The security forces, he says, act without thinking, but this is understandable, given they are being asked to solve problems that are far from their original remit, which is to ensure the enforcement of laws. The instinctive response of the security forces, predictably, is to detain everyone in order to deter others who may think about protesting. Other pundits disagree with Hosni and Hassan. For National Democratic Party (NDP) web editor Tarek Hassan, who also writes in Al-Ahram, it is the constitutional duty of the police and security forces to enforce law and order and this is exactly what happened on 6 April. The police could not stand by and watch public property being destroyed. It was not a peaceful national strike, says Tarek Hassan, but an outbreak of violence that had to be stopped. Detention is a wrong term used by some people to further their political agendas, he insists, arguing that it is the polices legitimate duty to conduct investigations into potential wrongdoing by any citizen. Such interrogations are legal and carried out to ensure no one violates the law. This is why both Ishaq and Abdel-Fattah, in addition to 18 others, were released, because investigations revealed they were not inciting violence. Magdi El-Dakkak, editor-in-chief of the state-owned Al-Helal monthly, is convinced that the security forces did not detain Abdel-Fattah because of her political tendencies. It is unacceptable to detain anyone because of private views. She was summoned only to ensure that she had not helped in encouraging the violence that took place on 6 April. Egypt is now neither ruled by politics nor by the force of law, but by the law of force, responds Bahieddin Hassan, who says the response to the call for a national strike on 6 April is an alarm bell that cannot be ignored. The security apparatus may succeed for now in deterring people from protesting, warns Hosni, but if socio-economic conditions continue and the public finds itself forced to choose between hunger or confronting an aggressive security force, they will opt for the latter. Then no force will be sufficient to deter them.
