CAIRO - Once again, e-activism has played an effective role in the downfall of the once-dreaded State Security Apparatus, the last bastion of the ex-Mubarak regime in major Egyptian cities within the past 48 hours. A Friday Facebook call by young revolutionaries in the coastal city of Alexandria has prompted the residents of Ghobrial Street to storm the blood-spattered State Security compound as its officers ordered the burning of all documents and reports incriminating the ex-regime's officials and informers. After a brief clash between the residents and the armed guards, the building became effectively divorced from the bigger State Security Apparatus in the capital, some 220km southwest of Alexandria. While some young men heaped scorn on the former Interior Minister Habib el-Adli, who is being held at the Mazraa Prison on the outskirts of Cairo, others demanded that all the people show calm and self-restraint until the Army units arrive and take over the building. But civilians poured through the compound hauling away tonnes of shredded papers and damaged files that contained names of detainees and informers, who had been captured by the officers. The young people and Army officers showed reporters and photographers empty rooms, where thousands of top-secret documents were either burnt, or shredded to zillion of stripes in a bid to hide any evidence against officials of the ex-regime, or false cases that had been filed against political opponents of former President Hosni Mubarak. In the director's own office, two young men eased into his chair while one of their friends took pictures of each other. "Hello, Habib el-Adli," one young man joked into the director's telephone. El-Adli went on trial on Saturday on corruption charges. He pleaded not guilty on all counts. Other young men smashed up the building. They ripped up floor tiles, and broke down walls to search for live detainees, or remains of prisoners as smoke came out of the upper floor. Some residents took revenge on the officers, beating up at least one, seizing others and guarding file cabinets and their files until the Army took over the building. On the following day, the picture did not differ much from Ghobrial Street. Pillows of smoke came out from the State Security building in Nasr City, where young people said they had seen police officers burning documents. The young men stormed the building, gained control of its lower floors and drove police officers out. They searched the building for political prisoners and arrested some of the remaining officers, whom they blamed for committing crimes such as torture, murder and intimidation against their fellow Egyptians during the previous regime. Meanwhile, the prosecutors have appealed to the young men, or any honest citizen to return the documents they had seized from the building to preserve national security. The highly classified files contained dangerous information about Egyptian officials, ordinary citizens, celebrities, media workers, university professors, parliamentarians, trade union members and political activists, who worked as informers for the security police, who have long been accused of human rights abuses. The prosecutors, who seized the building, urged the citizens to deliver these files to the Army. On Saturday, a Facebook message has called on the young people to barge their way into another State Security building in the 6th of October neighbourhood of Sheikh Zayed. The officers and guards inside the building fired into the air to try to disperse the approaching crowd. In the northwestern city of Mersa Matruh, a similar Facebook message has been sent. It spread the word that security officials were attempting to destroy files. The message ordered the young people to seize the State Security headquarters and take thousands of documents before the officers burn or destroy them. The young men skimmed through the files for evidence of human rights abuses as smoke billowed from the building. They said they saw policemen setting fire to documents and seized them to prevent their destruction. The Nasr City action was taken against the State Security headquarters, where clashes between the young people and security service personnel broke out. The documents may incriminate Egypt's notorious State Security Services for years of torture and abuse. Thousands of protesters on Saturday stormed the Interior Ministry offices around Cairo as word spread that security officials were attempting to destroy files. The young men said that the majority of files would lead to the prosecution of State Security officials for misuse of power, corruption and human rights violations. Some of them also indicated that these files would offer an intricate paper trail to Mubarak's police state. However, some of the arrested police officers claimed that they had received orders to destroy all the documents right after the resignation of ex-Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq on Thursday and before el-Adli's trial on Saturday. They added that the officers had made an attempt to cover up or destroy implicating evidence of their crimes against the Egyptians over the last 30 years. The Military Council, which is responsible for Egypt's affairs, yesterday urged the public to hand over any documents seized from State Security buildings to the Army.
