Press Association/AP/Amr Nabil. All rights reserved.“We are like God; we give orders to be obeyed,” was the blunt and blatant revelation from one interior ministry officer. This is the sense of superiority with which Egypt’s security forces operate, and the divine-like aura they carry around with them is mirrored in an escalating series of what regime apologists call “isolated incidents”.
The most recent “isolated incident” was the murder of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, which swayed international focus towards the brutality Egyptians regularly undergo.
Thousands of security personnel lined the streets of Greater Cairo on the fifth anniversary of the 25 January revolution. That same day, 28-year-old Regeni went missing, only to reemerge lifeless in a dump nine days later. Bearing the security services’ unmistakable imprint, Regeni’s body suffered from cigarette burns, broken fingers and neck, suffocation and electrocution. The officer assigned to investigate the case is reported to have previously tortured a man to death.
