Egyptian protestors seize secret police files

Barbara Miller reported this story on Monday, March 7, 2011

ELEANOR HALL: It's also been a dramatic weekend in Egypt, where activists took control of several locked offices belonging to the former regime's secret police.

The Mubarak regime used the secret police to torture opponents and monitor any resistance within the population. The activists say the documents they found contain evidence of phone-tapping, election rigging and torture.

The military council, which has ruled Egypt since Mubarak stepped down, warned against releasing the documents, citing national security concerns and as demonstrations continue today outside a state security building in central Cairo, some of those involved say they have been set upon by men in plain clothes, wielding knives.

Barbara Miller prepared this report.

(Sound of protesters)

BARBARA MILLER: Egyptian protestors have already had some of their key demands met. President Hosni Mubarak is gone. The interim prime minister is gone too. And a new cabinet is in the making. But they're not done yet.

And over the weekend they took out their anger on the country's secret police, storming several of its buildings in Alexandria and Cairo.

PROTESTER (translated): The state security apparatus must be dissolved. State security which has never served to protect this state's security. It's real function was to protect the regime. The state security was never there to protect us. All they did was set their thugs on us and spy on us.

(Sound of protesters)

BARBARA MILLER: Thousands of papers are being shredded inside, this protester told the crowd.

PROTESTER 2 (translated): We want it dissolved and turned into an information-gathering authority, nothing more. We don't need them to torture people and label them terrorists.

BARBARA MILLER: When the demonstrators did break through, they say what they found confirmed their worst fears.

PROTESTER 3: We found torture tools. Basically in one of the rooms we found a number of electric shocks. It is not the usual electric shock that we used to see with some of these officers. This time it was a bit long, it was black. The electric rods at the end of it were a bit like the teeth of some animal or something. It was really outstanding and if you turn it on there is a blue type of a spark that starts working and former detainees showed us how it actually, how it was used on them.

Another torture too was basically a cube-like frame made of rods and sticks attacked to it and there is an electricity charger attached to this structure with some electricity plugs. There are a number of ways that detainees used to be tortured using this device. The thing was so scary some people started crying after seeing all this.

BARBARA MILLER: This man says the documents contained evidence that the secret police spied upon and manipulated almost every aspect of daily life in Egypt during Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power.

PROTESTER 3: We found also plans for rigging the elections, the parliamentary elections in 2010. Exact plans telling how many votes will go to each candidate in every district in the country and how the state security and some state security agents working in the media are going to support certain candidates.

BARBARA MILLER: As protests continued on Sunday in Cairo, the demonstrators say they were set upon by men in plain clothes wielding knives. It's the first time since the fall of Hosni Mubarak last month that there have been reports of a violent crackdown on protesters.

It doesn't bode well for Egypt's new prime minister Essam Sharaf, who's currently trying to put together a Cabinet more palatable to the opposition movement.

The French foreign minister Alain Juppe visited Cairo on Sunday, offering whatever support was needed.

ALAIN JUPPE (translated): As I said upon my arrival, I did not come here with readymade solutions or advice to be followed. But quite simply to say that France is ready to help.

BARBARA MILLER: Some analysts are comparing the attack on secret police headquarters to the storming of the Bastille and it looks likely that the fall-out from the weekend's events will be felt for some time to come. WikiLeaks has started posting online what it says are some of the documents seized by protesters at the weekend.

WikiLeaks says it's also offering to help the activists reconstruct shredded files. The organisation claims to have the world's best shredder-reconstruction team on hand.

ELEANOR HALL: Barbara Miller reporting.