The April 6 Youth Movement on Tuesday accused the National Security Agency (NSA) of spying on its meeting and adopting old tactics used by the now-disbanded State Security Investigation Services (SSIS). The group's spokesperson, Engy Hamdy, was quoted on several Egyptian news websites as saying a stranger attended the group's meeting in 6th of October City and took a video of the event on his mobile phone. After asking for his identification, Hamdy said, the members discovered the man was a police agent. The man eventually yielded to pressure and admitted that he had been told by his superiors at the NSA office in 6th of October City to report on the meeting, Hamdy added. The dissolved SSIS is still operating at full strength and maintaining its policies of arbitrary detentions and torturing citizens, he said. In March, incumbent Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy dissolved the notorious SSIS, replacing it with the new NSA. But observers believe the change was only cosmetic, and argue that the SSIS still has vast influence. The April 6 Youth Movement, established in 2008 in support of labor protests in the city of Mahalla, Egypt's textile industry center, was at the forefront of activist groups that called for mass protests that eventually toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in February. Tensions between the group and the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have been rising since July, when clashes erupted between army forces and Defense Ministry-bound protesters in Abbasseya. Prior to the clashes, SCAF officials had accused April 6 of receiving foreign funding designed to divide the army and the people.
