Exposed: Egypt's spies dragged from shadows

north africa | repression / prisoners | non-anarchist press Wednesday March 09, 2011 16:35 by Dina Zayed and Sarah Mikhail - Reuters

New evidence of spying and torture by an Egyptian security agency has piled pressure on military rulers to abolish a hated and feared symbol of Hosni Mubarak's era.

Reformists at the heart of the mass uprising that toppled Mubarak have turned their attention to the agency known as state security, a body with a reputation for carrying out abuses that helped galvanise opposition to his 30-year rule.

After breaking into its premises and ransacking archives, activists posted videos and documents online which they say are proof the security agency must be dissolved by the military council that took over from Mubarak...

The posts include what was described as a torture chamber with a blood-stained floor and equipped with chains, and security files showing the extent of the agency's intrusion into citizens' lives.

The protests against state security culminated on Sunday in an attempt to storm its Cairo headquarters. Outside, activists were set upon by men in plain clothes armed with knives, swords, petrol bombs and bricks.

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