To begin with, in the state-owned media Al-Ahram, Farouk Goweida argued that an increasingly violent crime scene in Egypt should be the subject of careful studying and analysis. Goweida suggested a series of reasons behind what he referred to as a ‘phenomenon,’ including a lack of social justice, a slow judicial system, regional wars, violent television drama, and drugs.
As for Al-Youm Al-Sabea’s Akram Qassas, information and statistics on crime are essential to facing it. He wrote that in the past decade, a report prepared by the security apparatus used to be regularly published, but that it was stopped due to officials mistakenly believing that it would be used by the media and portray a negative image of the country as one with a high crime rate.
Also speaking on violence, Abla Al-Roweiny focused on sectarian violence in her piece for the privately-owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, following the attacks on Copts which took place last week in Minya, Upper Egypt. The writer pointed out the repetitiveness of such incidents in light of the absence of strict punishment and endless unofficial customary reconciliation sessions.
Likewise, the call for law enforcement was expressed by the newspaper’s Emad Gad in an op-ed where he stated that through different regimes since Hosni Mubarak to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, these attacks became more frequent and that promises to put end to them remain unfulfilled to date, especially because of reluctant security authorities.
But as much as Ahmed Ayoub from Al-Youm Al-Sabea agrees with the necessity of law enforcement and refers to those wishing to deal with the issue in informal ways as non-reformists, he refused to admit these attacks were of a sectarian nature, arguing instead that such labels were maliciously motivated to tarnish the country’s image.
Finally, in the same newspaper, Yasser Abdelaziz wonders about public confidence—a measurement tool of the power of the government—in the state’s legislative, executive and judicial powers, suggesting its decrease, mainly because of the lack of accurate information whether it be the reason a political activist was arrested, the expiry date on a given product, or the real reasons announced for the dismissal of a minister.
