The authorities in Egypt are alarmed by a new terror threat posed by an unlikely figure: a puppet. A conspiracy theorist, who is known for his nutty theories, has accused ‘Abla Fahita' of conveying coded terror messages to the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptians say the move indicates how the campaign against the group has reached absurd heights. One of Egypt's largest telecommunications companies, Vodafone, has come under investigation over an online advert featuring a popular puppet character, which a self-proclaimed activist has accused of sending a coded message linked to the Muslim Brotherhood group to carry out "terrorist" attacks. The little-known rap singer Ahmad Spider, a 28-year-old young man who first appeared on TV shows as a staunch supporter of ousted Hosni Mubarak, said that "codes about an upcoming attack were mentioned in the advert". Prosecutors have questioned the officials of the mobile company that described the accusations as "fictions", saying the puppet is merely a marketing tool and has no hidden message or meaning. The incident has sparked a wave of sarcastic reactions on social media critical of both the Egyptian prosecution and Spider. In the online advert, the well-known puppet in Egypt "Abla Fahita" (Aunt Fahita), and her daughter "Karkura" were searching for a Vodafone sim card that belonged to Fahita's deceased husband as the company had offered free calls for people who reactivate their old sim cards. Fahita was speaking to a friend over the phone about another character "Mama Tuta", while her daughter was looking for the sim card. In the background, a radio anchor was explaining how to cook "stuffed turkey" for Christmas while Fahita was sitting next to a cactus from which decorations, mainly a red ball, were dangling. Fahita told her friend that she had asked the building porter to go to a nearby shopping mall to get a sniffer dog to search for the missing sim card and that the dog trainer would get money in return. This is not the first time an online advert by Vodafone Egypt backfires. In 2011, Vodafone faced a backlash over an advert suggesting it helped inspire the 25 January revolution in the country. The three-minute commercial of 2011 featured excerpts from a Vodafone advertising campaign entitled "Our Power", which was launched three weeks before an anti-government uprising swept the country. Vodafone is one of several firms in Egypt that agreed to shut off its mobile and internet networks in the early stages of the January 25 Revolution as the government attempted to isolate anti-Mubarak protesters.
Spider, who was once interviewed by the state-Syrian TV to support embattled President Bashar Al-Assad, claimed that he managed to break the alleged codes. He told private Al-Tahrir TV that the "the mall and the dog referred to the site of a planned terrorist attack during the Christmas period", and that "Mama Tuta was the secret name of the Muslim Brotherhood", which was recently declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government in an unprecedented move through out the nearly nine-decade history of the group. "The dog, guard and mall are elements that tell us that there will be a big mall and an explosion after a dog fails to find the bomb in a car," Spider said. TV anchor Ahmad Musa, who hosted Spider, described the accusations as "serious". Also, Spider's lawyer told another private TV, Al-Fara'in, that the "ornament on the cactus refers to the bomb". The lawyer went on to say that "the cactus has four branches referring to pro-Muslim Brotherhood group's Rabaa sign", the four-finger salute created by the Muslim Brotherhood supporters in solidarity with hundreds of fellows who were killed in August of last year after a security crackdown on their sit-in at the Rabaa square in Cairo's district of Nasr City. (Rabaa is Arabic for the number four). The allegations were enough for Egyptian prosecutors to open an investigation and summon Vodafone representatives for questioning and refer Spider's complaints to the state security prosecutors, who handle serious offences chiefly terrorism. Vodafone Egypt defended its online advert. According to state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA), the company said that the advert was just a marketing tool to sell products. "The advert has no goal but marketing goals, any other explanations were just fictions and personal opinions by some people who have watched the advert," the company added. Ironically, the puppet Abla Fahita was also given airtime to ‘defend' herself. "I am a mere comedic sarcastic character," Fahita said with her trademark tone via Skype in a TV debate between her and Spider on the private CBC TV. In the debate, Spider accused an "intelligence and spying agency working in cahoots with Britain's MI6" of standing behind the advert and sending these coded messages. In another telephone interview with private Al-Nahar TV, Fahita criticized the accusations saying: "Instead of trying to suppress humour, try to suppress poverty and illness".
Social media was instantly abuzz with hundreds of sarcastic and critical comments of the prosecution and Spider. The Egyptian twitterati created several hashtags, such as "Freedom to Abla Fahita" and "We are all Abla Fahita" to poke fun at the incident. Basim Youssef, the popular television satirist, whose show was suspended last year, said on Twitter: "We shall return to regain the right of Abla Fahita." Activist @Reem_mn5 tweeted: "So the public prosecutor forgot about the bombs, assassination attempts and corruption cases, and he only focuses on questioning Abla Fahita, the puppet." @yousof72 said: "It is such a stupid regime that cracks down on Abla Fahita." While @emyfarid86 also tweeted: "I cannot imagine the situation of the Vodafone official in Egypt who will send an email to his headquarters in Britain to tell them about what happened. I do not know how he will explain that." On its Facebook page, the 6 April Youth Movement said: "We're wondering about a State that is frightened from a puppet and a [TV] satirist. " Egyptian authorities have cracked down heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood since the ouster of former president Mohammad Morsi on July 3, 2013. Since then, Egypt has witnessed a series of bomb attacks, including a car bombing of a security headquarters that left 16 dead in the Nile Delta city of Al-Mansurah last month (December, 2013). A Sinai-based group, Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for the grisly attack. Such funny accusations and conspiracy theories are not unprecedented in Egypt. In August of last year, authorities have detained a migratory bird that a citizen suspected of being a spy. In December of 2010, the then South Sinai governor did not rule out that Israel was behind the spate of shark incidents in Egypt's territorial waters in the Red Sea to scare tourists away.
