About The Incarceration of the TikTok Young Women in Egypt – PART II: From the Egyptian Viewpoint
Published in August 13, 2020
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
Firstly:
We coordinated and presided over the weekly forum of Ibn Khaldoun Center on Tuesdays (every night and nonstop) from Jan. 1996 to June 2000 when the Center was closed down by the Mubarak regime. Many Egyptian and Arab VIPs, thinkers, ambassadors, diplomats, authors,...etc. attended such forums; in 1998, the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal took place; Clinton denied having an affair with Monica; yet, Clinton's seminal fluid stain on the blue dress of Monica was found; the Congress accused Clinton of perjury. In the Egyptian media, the scandal was turned into a red herring to distract the masses away from thinking of poverty and corruption; the military-rule generals in Egypt posed as 'defenders' of chastity and virtue! This was very disgusting; yet, the cultural attaché of the USA requested from our person to talk in a forum about the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and its influence on the Egyptian media! We organized such a forum; many people attended and there was no seat left unoccupied; the cultural attaché deplored the fact that the Egyptian media focused on the sexual details and disregarded the perjury of Clinton and his being impeached. No one in Egypt, he said, seemed to notice that American democracy was about to remove a president from office despite his popularity and achievements because of perjury and not because of fornication. We pitied the cultural attaché from the bottom of our heart; the naïve man assumed that the Egyptian media is free; he never knew at the time that the Ministry of Information is controlled by the military regime and that its aim was to brainwash the masses in Egypt and to distract them by red herrings every now and then so that the masses would remain controlled/ridden by the military-rule generals.
Secondly:
1- Once in power in 1981, Mubarak declared his famous phrase that 'shrouds have no pockets'; i.e., money does not keep off death and he would not steal the public money. The Egyptian media at the time portrayed him as a just, fair ruler who never desired to hoard money; yet, years later, it was transpired in 2011 that this traitor has smuggled more than 7 billion US$ as he sold parts of Egypt!
2- To distract the Egyptian citizens and the public opinion away from thinking of such thefts, corruption, and impoverishment, the Mubarak-regime media never ceased to use red herrings involving framing and incarcerating innocent people.
3- Examples of red herrings which still linger within our memory now are as follows.
3/1: Our own arrest and incarceration in 1987 after being accused of denying Sunna; such an accusation is never even part of violations mentioned in the Egyptian Law; of course, the Egyptian media controlled by the military-rule generals celebrated this new red herring to distract the masses; many writers, journalists, and Azharite sheikhs loyal to the Mubarak regime attacked and slandered our person.
3/2: The case of the so-called 'Satanics' who worshiped Satan in nightclubs and parties in villas; it turned out that these innocent youths merely danced and listened to heavy-metal music; yet, the red herring caused the desired effect for months within the Egyptian society; everyone at the time believed the rumors that such (fe)male youths worshiped Satan and drank blood of animal sacrifices!
3/3: The Queen Boat case in Cairo, Egypt (a case known in the West also as "Cairo 52" at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_52) when some male youths were arrested from a boat on the River Nile in Cairo and accused of being homosexuals who held an orgy inside this boat; after this red herring caused much furor and distraction/diversion as planned by the military rule generals in Egypt whose newspapers published the names of the 52 men, the medical examination proved that such respectable men (whose reputation was tarnished forever) are innocent and never practiced homosexual debauchery; they were released from prison months later and suffered many psychological problems apart from being ostracized and stigmatized.
3/4: In the mid-1970s, the military-rule generals mercilessly framed the actress Mimi Shakib (who was in her old age!) by accusing her of facilitating prostitution in her flat/apartment by allowing potential customers to meet with female sex workers in parties she held in her flat; ironically, this actress was very chaste and loyal to her husband, the actor Serag Mounir, before and after his death. After the scandal or the red herring caused the desired effect via newspapers of Cairo at the time and people were distracted and diverted away from thinking of politics and corruption, the imprisoned actress was released after she was broken physically and psychologically. It is said that she went deaf out of shock; few years later, she was murdered by being thrown by an unknown attacker from the balcony of her flat.
4- This is of no importance at all to the military regime; what is important to the generals who rule Egypt is to offer red herrings every now and then; this is how they turned the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal into a red herring of sexual nature; the Egyptian media blamed Clinton for telling lies though the military-rule generals are inveterate liars themselves!
Thirdly:
1- Within the more-than-seven-millennia-old history of Egypt, the worst event is the 1952 military coup d'état and its resulting military rule which goes on until now. Several catastrophes and calamities took place ever since; we exemplify them in the following points.
1/1: Geographically, Egypt lost control of North Sinai filled with ISIS terrorists; Al-Sisi regime sold two Red-Sea islands to the KSA; Egypt is losing control of its rights in the River Nile and the Mediterranean Sea; Egypt is dwarfed as a follower to the UAE (Ibn Zayed) and to the KSA (Ibn Salman). The debts of Egypt skyrocketed; the government borrows money to settle the interest rates only; billions of LE are being smuggled; the Egyptian military generals buy useless arms/weapons (to get high commissions and to please the West countries which sell weapons) and engage into trade (fruits, vegetables, meat,...etc.).
1/2: Far worse is that the Egyptian military-rule generals enslaves the Egyptian citizens.
1/2/1: The Egyptian young women arrested within the 2011 revolt were humiliated by the so-called 'virginity test' introduced by Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi who was the head of the Egyptian Military Intelligence Agency at the time.
1/2/2: The military regime tortures incarcerated people (i.e., Egyptian political prisoners) and forced some Egyptian actresses to have sex to obtain information for the sake of the Egyptian Central Intelligence Apparatus .
2- Before the 1952 coup d'état, Egypt was the pioneer State in the Orient within arts and culture; when Abdel-Nasser came to power and removed the name of Egypt from the world map when he declared a union with Syria, he renamed Egypt as (The Southern Region of the United Arab Republic); this was a very big mistake. Another more terrible mistake committed by Nasser is his nationalization policy which made him confiscate and control arts, media, and culture in Egypt; he excluded those who dared to voice the slightest criticism of his regime. This is why some cultural figures like Taha Hussein, Heikal, and Al-Akkad remained silent; the Nasser regime controlled arts and the cultural scene with an iron grip; those who applaud the regime were the only ones allowed to exist in the artistic and cultural scene, such as the male singers M. Abdel-Wahab and Abdel-Haleem Hafez (no one nationalized their companies); the artists who never applauded the regime were punished severely; e.g., the great actor Ismail Yaseen was chased away from Egypt by heavy taxes imposed on him; he died in poverty; the great singer and composer M. Fawzy died of sorrow since his company was nationalized after he refused to sing for Nasser and his regime. Many voices of Egyptian singers were silenced for the sake of pleasing Abdel-Haleem Hafez who served the Nasser regime with his political and 'national' songs. Sadly, some pretty actresses and female Arab and Egyptian singers were controlled at the time by the officers/pimps of the Egyptian Central Intelligence Apparatus especially Safwat Al-Sharif in the 1960s.
3- Hence, Egyptian artists were forced to praise and applause the military regime and some Egyptian actresses and female singers were manipulated by force by pimps of the Egyptian Central Intelligence Apparatus ; Safwat is the one who trained such women to obtain information from men who receive sexual favors from such women. This pimp forced and terrorized/intimated female Egyptian artists who at first refused to obey him; of course, some Arab rulers, ministers, and princes were flattered to have such actresses and female singers gracing their beds in return for some information about their countries! Safwat the pimp would usually videotape such sexual encounters to embezzle and threat the Arab men. This scandal came to the fore when Nasser quarreled with his head of the Egyptian Central Intelligence Apparatus Salah Nasr; interrogations with Egyptian actresses like Souad Hosni have the name of Safwat in them as the one who trained actresses as sex workers and taught them how to extract information from Arab and foreign men in return for granting such men sexual favors; his lame excuse was that he routinely performed his job and Abdel-Nasser knew about all of it!
4- Rumors have it that Kaddafi of Libya offered Safwat 100 million LE in return for videotapes of Arab rulers who slept with Egyptian actresses and female singers; Safwat refused and waited for the best time and the best, higher offer; this means a secret auction for such videotapes of scandals was held at the time! Of course, such an auction was for the benefit of both Sadat and Mubarak; this is why the pimp named Safwat was a powerful figure in the Mubarak regime; this is because he held so many secrets. Instead of his retirement and his being ashamed of himself, the pimp Safwat became, during the reign of Mubarak, the 'defender' of Egyptian values and the values of the Egyptian family! This was absurd! The pimp Safwan served Sadat as the head of the General Bureau of Information (from 1979 to 1981); the pimp Safwat was among the prominent founders of the National Democratic Party (NDP) established in 1977; while serving the Mubarak regime, this pimp became the Secretary-General of NDP from 2002 to 2011. This pimp was appointed as the Minister of Information from 1982 to 2004. He later on headed the Egyptian Shura Assembly (it was similar somehow to the Senate in the U.S.). Of course, the pimp Safwat collapsed after the ouster of Mubarak in 2011; he was held on trial in April 2011.
Fourthly: within holding Safwat on trial in Egypt for earning ill-gotten money by illegal means (before his release and being declared 'innocent' eventually!), the amount of his wealth, assets, and possessions inside Egypt was discovered to be as follows:
1- The villa no. 21 in Abou Sultan Beach in Ismailia Governorate.
2- The villa no. 121 in Mirage City in the Cairene district of New Cairo.
3- The chalet no. 21 in Sidi Kereer in Alexandria Governorate.
4- The apartment no. 4, on the 2nd floor, in Khalifa Al-Maamoun Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
5- The apartment on the 8th floor in the building no. 41, Fareed Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
6- A stretch of land supposedly intended to build a mosque in Heliopolis – Cairo.
7- The stretch of land no. 187 within the project Hacienda White in the northern coast in Egypt.
8- The stretch of land no. 32 within the project Hacienda White in the northern coast in Egypt.
9- The apartment no. 42, building no. 8, Al-Obour district, Cairo.
10- 2860 shares (in US$) in the Egyptian Holding Company for Satellites.
The wealth, assets, and possessions of his wife Mrs. Iqbal M. Attiya:
1- The villa no. 122 in Mirage City - New Cairo.
2- A chalet in Abou Sultan Beach in Ismailia Governorate.
3- A stretch of land, no. 11, in the northern region of the Cairene district of New Cairo.
4- 2860 shares (in US$) in the Egyptian Holding Company for Satellites.
5- 1060 shares (in LE) in the Telecom Egypt Company.
6- 1331 shares (in LE) in the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC).
The wealth, assets, and possessions of his son Ashraf and his wife and his children:
1- The Mirage Company for Maintenance and Management.
2- The Artoc Sat Company.
3- A public relations company.
4- The Egyptian-Arab Company for Studios.
5- The Egyptian-Arab Company for Artistic Production.
6- The Nile Company for Public Relations.
7- The Oscar Company for Media Production.
8- A chain of restaurants named (Egypt's Capital).
9- A company named (Prime Pictures Egypt).
10- A company named (Viva Beetle for Artistic Production).
11- The Matrix Company for Services and Marketing.
12- The Nile Production Company for Subcontracting.
13- The High Flash Company for Media.
14- The Egyptian-Arab Company for Show Business.
15- The villa no. 16 in Mirage City - New Cairo.
16- The villa no. 153 in Golf City - New Cairo.
17- The villa no. 17 in a coastal village in Al-Alameen - Marsa Matrouh Governorate.
18- The villa no. 174 in the village in the northern coast - Alexandria Governorate.
19- The unit no. 52 in Marina, in the northern coast - Alexandria Governorate.
20- The chalet no. 91 in Marina, in the northern coast - Alexandria Governorate.
21- A unit of 100 square meters, no. 30927, in Porto Sokhna, Suez Governorate.
22- A unit of 100 square meters, no. 30928, in Porto Sokhna, Suez Governorate.
23- A unit of 110 square meters, no. 30929, in Porto Sokhna, Suez Governorate.
24- The apartment no. 5, on the 2nd floor, building no. 6, in Golf City - New Cairo.
25- The apartment on the ground floor in the above-mentioned building.
26- The apartment on the 7th floor in Fareed Str. - Heliopolis - Cairo.
27- The ground floor in the building no. 6 in Ezzat Str. - Heliopolis - Cairo.
28- The stretch of land no. 108 in Heliopolis - Cairo.
29- A stretch of agricultural land (20 feddans) in Ismailia Governorate.
30- The stretch of land (728 feddans) no. 23 in Ismailia Governorate.
31- A stretch of land in the main beach in Al-Alameen, Marsa Matrouh Governorate, for the sake of a restaurant owned by the Egypt's Capital Company.
32- The unit no. 183 within the project Hacienda White in the northern coast in Egypt.
33- The unit no. 34 within the project Hacienda White in the northern coast in Egypt.
34- A Citroën car.
35- A Hyundai car.
36- 8800 shares (in US$) in the Egyptian Holding Company for Satellites.
37- 1060 shares (in LE) in the Telecom Egypt Company.
38- 68 shares (in LE) in a company for cars spare parts.
39- 1000 shares (in LE) in Hisham Talaat Moustafa Group.
40- a Mini Cooper car.
The wealth, assets, and possessions of his son Ehab and his wife and his children:
1- The villa no. 150, in Mirage City – New Cairo.
2- The villa no. 43 - Al-Zomoruda Area – Marina Al-Alameen – Marsa Matrouh Governorate.
3- The 2nd floor apartment in building no. 41, Fareed Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
4- A flat in Ahmad Hosni Str. Nasr City – Cairo.
5- The unit no. 31114 in Porto Sokhna – Suez Governorate.
6- The cabin no. 3188 in Ezees Beach
7- The units nos. 361, 2260, 188, and 31 in Hacienda White Project for Ehab and his wife and two children.
8- The Mirage Company for maintenance and management of Mirage City.
9- The Good News Nora Egypt Company.
10- 1060 shares (in LE) in Telecom Egypt Company.
11- 837 shares (in LE) in the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC).
12- A Mini Cooper car.
13- A Mercedes car.
The wealth, assets, and possessions of his daughter Eman:
1- The villa no. 122 in Mirage City – New Cairo.
2- The apartment no. 2, 2nd floor in 19 Khalifa Al-Maamoun Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
3- The unit no. 228 in Hacienda White 2 Project.
4- The unit no. 33 in Hacienda White 2 Project.
5- 223 shares (in LE) in the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC).
Other wealth, assets, and possessions of the family of Safwat:
1- The villa no. 9 in Ramses Str. - Nasr City – Cairo.
2- The villas nos. 16 and 17 in Abou Sultan Beach in Ismailia Governorate.
3- Cemeteries no. 135, 136, and 137 in Al-Tagammoe Al-Khamis district – Cairo.
4- The cabin no. 21 in Aida Beach – Alexandria Governorate.
5- A stretch of land (350 meters) with a two-story villa in Morgana Village – Qanatar – Greater Cairo.
6- The apartment no. 16 (200 meters) in Houses of Medical Doctors Project.
7- The apartment no. 3 in Hejaz Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
8- The apartment no. 10 in Al-Hurriyya Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
9- The apartment no. 14 in Fareed Str. – Heliopolis – Cairo.
10- The apartment no. 6 in tower no. 2 in Sheraton Al-Montazah – Alexandria Governorate.
11- The apartment no. 9 in tower no. 2 in Al-Nour City Project – Nasr City – Cairo.
12- The unit no. 3 in Al-Gamaliya district – Cairo.
13- A villa in Abou Sultan Beach – in the city of Fayed – Ismailia Governorate.
14- The stretches of land nos. 148, 149, 150, and 151 in Golf City – New Cairo, with four, walled palaces built on them.
15- The stretch of land no. 35 in Golf City – New Cairo.
16- The villa no. 56 in Area No. 22 in Marina Al-Alameen – Marsa Matrouh Governorate.
17- The villa no. 11 in Area No. 24 in Marina Al-Alameen – Marsa Matrouh Governorate.
18- The villa no. 12 in Area No. 24 in Marina Al-Alameen – Marsa Matrouh Governorate.
19- Two stretches of land (692 meters + 699 meters) in Al-Tagammoe Al-Khamis district – Cairo.
20- A Mercedes car.
21- A Renault car.
22- A Mitsubishi car and an Alfa Romeo car.
23- An BMW car.
24- An Audi car.
25- The villa no. 83, 1340 meters – bought from the Al-Qattamiyya Investment Company.
Of course, this is all about the ill-gotten wealth of Safwat and his family members inside Egypt only; as for the amount of wealth he has smuggled abroad, it is known only by the Omniscient Lord God.
Lastly:
1- For the military-rule generals in Egypt, the above facts about Safwat is never deemed as a violation of Egyptian society values, the values of the Egyptian family, and rules of modesty by shocking the prudish, conservative citizens.
2- Yet, within this era of the making free pornographic material available online for everyone in the global village, the military-rule generals in Egypt assume that when some young women in Egypt share/upload their videos and photos via TikTok as a 'crime' that is deemed as a violation of Egyptian society values, the values of the Egyptian family, and rules of modesty by shocking the prudish, conservative citizens.
The Best Discourse:
The Lord God says the following in the Holy Quran: "Do not ever think that God is unaware of what the unjust ones do. He only defers them until a Day when the sights stare." (14:42). As always, the Lord God says nothing but the Absolute Truth.