The Administrative Court of the State Council decided Tuesday to restart the hearings on the call for banning a decision by the Ministry of Interior to re-establish the dissolved State Security apparatus.
The new trial will begin on 4 August, after a lawsuit was filed by lawyer Mohamed Al-Selkawy stating that the civil arrest of State Security personnel should only be permitted by a law, or at least a decision from the justice minister, but that allowing it through the interior ministry is illegal and unconstitutional.
In the wake of the 25 January Revolution, protesters marked another achievement after toppling former president Mubarak by breaking into State Security offices across different governorates in large numbers, including activists from the 6 April Youth Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood. They attempted to destroy the offices and grab evidence of civilians’ detention and alleged torture.
The interior ministry replaced the State Security apparatus with a new Homeland Security Force, which would serve “the nation without interfering in the lives of citizens or their exercising of their political rights”, the state news agency reported 10 days later after the incident.
However, amid the recent political turbulence over the past two years, the apparatus was back in action after the interior ministry rebranded it as Homeland Security. Homeland Security personnel have been detaining suspected Brotherhood members.
On Tuesday, a staff member at the US embassy in Cairo was arrested by Egyptian authorities, an embassy spokesperson confirmed to Daily News Egypt Tuesday. The reports claim that the Homeland Security’s prosecution accuse Ali of being a commander with a militant group, the Helwan Brigades, and participating in 13 attacks, including the bombing and burning of a Helwan court.
More cases of individuals believed to be abducted by security forces in a wave of disappearances over the past two weeks are emerging, as reports by activists and family members are published online.
On 2 June, 20-year-old engineering student Omar Gamal disappeared during a family outing. In a statement posted online, Gamal’s sister told of how her family were spending the evening at a Heliopolis sporting club, when eight men in civilian clothes took her brother away in a microbus without identifying themselves.
