|
Egypt Intelligence Services
Internal security was the responsibility of three intelligence
organizations: General Intelligence, attached to the presidency;
Military Intelligence, attached to the Ministry of Defense; and the
General Directorate for State Security Investigations (GDSSI),
under direct control of the minister of interior. Any of these
agencies could undertake investigations of matters pertaining to
national security, but the GDSSI was the main organization for
domestic security matters. After the Sadat era, the tendency of
military intelligence to encroach on civilian security functions
had been curbed.
Nasser established a pervasive and oppressive internal security
apparatus. The security police detained as many as 20,000 political
prisoners at a time and discouraged public discussions or meetings
that could be construed as unfriendly to the government. The
security police recruited local informants to report on the
activities and political views of their neighbors. Under Sadat
intelligence forces were less obtrusive but still managed to be
well informed and effective in monitoring subversives, opposition
politicians, and foreigners. The security police's failure to
uncover the plot leading to Sadat's assassination tarnished the
reputation of the force. The security police also seemed to be
taken by surprise by the CSF riots and failed to prevent other
disorders such as a series of assassination attempts by radical
Islamists in the late 1980s.
The authorities have never revealed the personnel strength of
the GDSSI, which played an important role in government by
influencing policy decisions and personnel matters. The GDSSI
engaged routinely in surveillance of opposition politicians,
journalists, political activists, foreign diplomats, and suspected
subversives. The GDSSI focused on monitoring underground networks
of radical Islamists and probably planted agents in those
organizations. According to some sources, the GDSSI had informants
in all government departments and public-sector companies, labor
unions, political parties, and the news media. The organization was
also believed to monitor telephone calls and correspondence by the
political opposition and by suspected subversives.
In the past, the regime had given the GDSSI considerable leeway
in maintaining political control and using emergency laws to
intimidate people suspected of subversion
(see The Judicial System
, this ch.). The GDSSI remained in 1990 the primary organ for
combatting political subversion even after Mubarak and the
judiciary took several steps to limit the organization's power.
The GDSSI was accused of torturing Islamic extremists to
extract confessions. In 1986 forty GDSSI officers went on trial for
422 charges of torture that were brought by Al Jihad defendants.
After lengthy legal wrangling, the court absolved all the GDSSI
officers in mid-1988. The judgment concluded that the GDSSI had
indeed tortured Al Jihad members but said there was insufficient
evidence to link the particular GDSSI officers on trial with the
torture.
Data as of December 1990
|
