View full report in pDF<\/a><\/p>\nReport prepared by<\/b><\/p>\n
Sarah Ramadan<\/b><\/p>\n
AFTE researcher<\/b><\/p>\n
Edited by<\/b><\/p>\n
Mohamed Nagui<\/b><\/p>\n
AFTE researcher<\/b><\/p>\n
\f<\/b><\/p>\nReport Methodology<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\nThe report is the fifth in a series of the conscience and memory program\u2019s publications that deal with successive events of the revolution as a period of conflict. This report addresses the fact that communications were interrupted during the events of the 25 January revolution. However, the scope of research in the report exceeds the five days in which Egypt was hidden from the Internet map, as the cutting off of communications and its consequences takes us to several years before and after the event until the writing of this report. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nUnlike previous reports of the program, in which we rely primarily on official investigation papers and the case in question, we have relied here only on the merits of case no. 21855 of the year 65, known as the \u201ccutting of communications\u201d case, as it was extremely difficult to obtain the whole case file, since the care was returned to court, as well as the usual difficulties faced by any person who wants access to information. <\/span><\/p>\nThe report also relied on documented testimonies obtained by AFTE from victims and their families directly affected by the decision to cut communication, as well as official and non-official statements and decrees issued during the said periods. We also relied on documents that were leaked during the storming of the State Security headquarters, which have not been denied by respective authorities in March 2011, in addition to various local and international news platforms that the team verified and finally what has been published during this period on social networking sites, which we considered important in understanding the context of the reporting period.<\/span><\/p>\n\f<\/b><\/p>\nIntroduction<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\nOn March 24, 2018, the Supreme Administrative Court handed down its ruling in the case of cutting communications. It abolished the fine imposed on former President Mubarak and his prime minister and interior minister. The court considered the decision to cut communications a protection of public interest and national security.<\/span><\/p>\nSeven years ago, the Investment Circuit of the Administrative Court of Justice, headed by Judge Hamdi Yassin, Vice-President of the State Council, had begun the proceedings of the case No. 21855 for the year 65, which was filed by the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights, against twelve officials in the Mubarak regime, in addition to the three mobile operators and the Internet service providers, demanding that Mubarak and Al-Adli be obliged to pay a financial compensation for cutting telecommunications and Internet service for citizens during the revolution without prior warning, causing great damage.<\/span><\/p>\nOn 26 March 2011, the first hearing of the proceedings was considered. Yassin issued his ruling two months later on May 28, 2011, obliging Mubarak, Nazif and Habib Al-Adly to pay 540 million pounds of their own money to the state treasury for the damage caused to the national economy as a result of cutting communication during the first days of the revolution, where Al-Adly was to pay 300 million, Mubarak 200 million, and Nazif 40 million pounds.<\/span><\/p>\nThe difference between the first instance ruling and the second sentence issued just days ago is not only a difference between a ruling that upheld the right of human beings to communicate and all other related rights, and another ruling that acquitted the defendants and cleared their responsibility for a crime that claimed the lives of many under the pretext of protecting national security. It is rather an attitude which characterized each of the \u201cConscience and \u201cMemory\u201d cases addressed by AFTE, which is to establish an official narrative aimed at justifying gross violations of human rights and blurring the facts about what happened, in contrast to other attempts to present alternative narratives that raise the voices of citizens, youth and protesters, as well as victims who lived through the events and were affected by actions taken by authorities.<\/span><\/p>\nThis report, like other reports of the conscience and memory program, is one of those attempts: to give voice to alternative narratives, attempts to look at things from angles that the authority wants to ignore.<\/span><\/p>\nIn this report, we try to recall the facts of the communication disconnection during the January 25, 2011 revolution, which came as a flash among a series of events and developments. Seven years after the outbreak of the revolution, many of its events seem to escape our memory; so this report tries to collect the details of this issue and its impact on human rights, especially the right to life.<\/span><\/p>\nThis report is being issued at a time when the state has become more aggressive with regard to the digital rights of citizens and their right to access the Internet. From May 24, 2017 to date the government has blocked at least 500 sites. As well as its enactment of a law on so-called “cybercrime” that imposes restrictions on the use of the Internet, as well as security campaigns against the right of citizens to express their views freely through social media. Therefore, this report comes at a time of increasing importance of raising a voice in the face of the state’s attempt to permanently close and fully control the outlet of cyberspace. <\/span><\/p>\nThe report is divided into four main chapters. The first deals with the facts related to the cutting of telephone communications and the Internet from all parts of Egypt during the January revolution, while the second chapter deals with the effect of these cuts, especially as regards the impact on the right to life. Chapter III addresses the legality of the cutting of communications and the use of the national security argument as a pretext for this act. The fourth and final chapter addresses the role of those responsible for that crime.<\/span><\/p>\nChapter I: The story of the cut of communications<\/b><\/p>\n
What happened?!<\/b><\/p>\n
Hours after the news of the success of the Tunisian revolution in the removal of Ben Ali and his escape from the country, there were calls on social media sites in Egypt to demonstrate on 25 January 2011 in conjunction with the Egyptian Police Day. The calls spread among different sectors and were adopted by political parties and movements. Social networks contributed to the organization of the actions and dissemination of information before the time of the demonstration. Thousands of demonstrators marched in different places in Cairo and met in Tahrir square in the center of the city, condemning the crimes by the ruling regime and its corruption, the widespread unemployment and systematic torture in Egyptian police stations and prisons.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Mubarak regime, for its part, had taken proactive steps by cutting off communications to reduce the number of demonstrators and disrupt their movement<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\nIn<\/span> the early hours of Tuesday, January 25, the Egyptian government blocked Twitter and the bambuser live broadcast site. At 8 pm of the same day, the coverage of mobile networks in the vicinity of Tahrir Square was cut off.<\/span><\/p>\nAt 10:30 pm the following day, January 26, Twitter and Bambuser \u00a0returned to work on a limited scale, while Facebook was as well as BlackBerry services.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the evening of Thursday, January 27, at approximately 9:30 pm, SMS services and all Internet services were cut off except those associated with the Nur Internet service provider by, the only provider whose services were not interrupted. Information related to trading in the stock exchange and some economic operations were transferred by the government to that service provider<\/span>. The interruption of those services continued from the 28<\/span>th<\/span> to the 31<\/span>st<\/span> of January 2011.<\/span><\/p>\nOn Wrath Friday, January 28<\/span>th<\/span>, voice calls were stopped on the three mobile phone companies, and for hours telephone land lines were blocked in some areas, as well as the satellite. On January 31<\/span>st<\/span>, the Internet was cut from the last service provider. On February 2, 2011, at 12 pm, Internet services were re-activated. SMS services were re-activated on 6<\/span>th<\/span> of February.<\/span><\/p>\nDespite the confusion caused by the cut of communication, the protests escalated and spread throughout Egypt’s various governorates. With the security violence in response to the demonstrators, the demands went beyond the condemnation of security practices to demand the overthrow of the regime and that Mubarak step down. Demonstrations continued demanding Mubarak to step down for 18 days until director of General Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, announced on February 11<\/span>th<\/span>, 2011 that the deposed President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak would step down and the military council would take over the country’s affairs for a transitional period that extended to the presidential elections, which were held in the middle of 2012.<\/span><\/p>\nEmergency room.. How did the state manage the communications cut?<\/b><\/p>\n
“The decision to cut off communication, SMS and Internet services was not a spontaneous decision produced by the peaceful protest conditions. It was a deliberate and calculated decision that was prepared for before the dawn of the revolution of January 25, 2011”<\/span><\/p>\nExcerpt from the ruling of the administrative judiciary in the case of cutting communications<\/span><\/p>\nThe case archives indicate that the government conducted two experiments to cut off communications in Egypt before fully implementing that cut on the eve of the January revolution. The emergency room, which consisted of representatives of the Ministries of Defense, Interior, Communications and Information, and the three mobile companies (Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat), cut communications on April 6, 2008, in conjunction with the strike by Mahalla workers and the calls for civil disobedience adopted by political activists.<\/span><\/p>\n“Until 2008, the government’s relationship to the Internet was not in place, and there was no clear interference between the government and the electronic space. With the outbreak of the Mahalla events, it became aware of the existence of bloggers and the creation of various spaces through the Internet that it cannot control.<\/span><\/p>\nRami Raouf, researcher in the field of digital rights<\/span><\/p>\nThe sixth of April is one of the most important episodes in the path for change in Egypt; a call for a strike announced by the workers of the Mahalla spinning company in protest of the high prices and low wages, turns into a general strike after the adoption of the call by some bloggers and activists from the Kefaya and 6<\/span>th<\/span> of April<\/span> movements and some opposition parties.<\/span><\/p>\nIn the first use of Facebook in advocating and mobilizing political action<\/span>, activists spread the idea of \u200b\u200bthe strike fast and wide<\/span> through cyberspace, especially social network sites and blogs. A large number embraced the idea of <\/span>\u200b\u200b<\/span>a general strike, and this infinite space became one of the most important mechanisms of mobilization for the strike.<\/span><\/p>\nWith the wide dissemination of calls for strike, the Ministry of Interior established for the first time a secret room that meets in crisis situations and called it the \u201cEmergency Room\u201d, which was located in Ramses telecommunication, one of Cairo’s busiest and most crowded streets, to counter what the security authorities called “the use by agitating elements of sms and web services to spread misleading and incorrect news and messages that could create chaos in the country.”<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to documents belonging to State Security Service<\/span>, which were obtained by citizens after they stormed the premises in March 2011<\/span>, the emergency room was formed during the Mahalla events, with the participation of members of the following organs and ministries: the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and the General Information and Documentation Department of State Security Investigations, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Mass Media, Mobile Companies, and Internet Service Provider Companies.<\/span><\/p>\nThe second experiment, which was more sophisticated, took place three months before the beginning of the revolution, specifically on October 10, 2010, and aimed at cutting communications from Egypt, and blocking some websites and Internet access in a city, governorate or several governorates. The experiments included blocking or slowing down specific websites, developing a plan to speed up access to users’ data and electronic prints after using them for a period of not less than three months, blocking mobile service by the three companies from a specific area, city or governorate or all of Egypt and closing Bulk SMS service from outside the country as not to exceed 50 mobile receivers, especially those coming from East Asia countries.<\/span><\/p>\nThis experiment came after NTRA monitored an SMS from outside the country<\/span> on September 30, 2010 confirming the death of ousted President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak. The rumor of his death<\/span> \u00a0spread upon his return from Germany where he had a cholecystectomy (surgical removal of the gall bladder) in 2010 and his lack of public appearance while he was recuperating in Sharm El Sheikh<\/span>. The rumor circulated quickly after one of the international numbers sent a text message carrying the news to a limited number of mobile phones inside Egypt. Despite the development of this second experiment, and its wide scope, it revealed gaps in the implementation of the plan to slow down access to a website, a matter which service providing companies promised to study how to address technically.<\/span><\/p>\nInternal communications confirm that the NTRA reported to the SSI immediately after the message was received informing them. The information was passed from there to Minister of Interior, Major General Habib Al-Adli at the time. The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Tarek Kamel, then instructed the three mobile companies on 10 October to block short mobile messages arriving from abroad. The emergency room reconvened in a \u201cbooster meeting” at Ramses telecommunication upon the request of the Minister of Communications<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\nThe 13<\/span>th<\/span> of October meeting was preceded by several meetings to follow up the procedures to be taken by the various security bodies to control the spread of the rumor and identify its sender: the meeting addressed the establishment of future mechanisms with the telecommunications companies to speed up data acquisition in case the situation is repeated in the future, as well as the approval of the Minister of Communications to the request of the General Intelligence and the national body for the organization of communications represented by its deputy, engineer Mustafa Abdul Wahid, regarding the need to obtain technical data of the message, which includes its geographical location and sender information. Representatives of the agency and General Intelligence demanded to obtain a “USB” modem from the mobile companies with information regarding their experience in accessing the Internet, to check whether each company records the used electronic fingerprint and sites that are being browsed<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\nThe documents reveal that there exists a special section of electronic interception in SSI, chaired by Lieutenant Colonel Kamal Saif Eldin Kamal. The section is affiliated to the \u00a0Electronic Monitoring Group of the Central Department of Information Technology in the General Information Department<\/span>, which was summoned to the emergency room meetings when needed.<\/span><\/p>\nThe documents reveal the involvement of several bodies, including the Ministry of Defense and Interior, General Intelligence, the Ministry of Communications, the National Telecommunications Agency, the three mobile companies and the Internet service providers in violating the privacy of citizens using the Internet and spying on them, to prevent them from exercising their right to communicate, up to complete bloc of the service, which led to the fall of a large number of victims during the January 25 revolution because of their inability to contact ambulances or medical services in the absence of communication services. <\/span><\/p>\nAlthough the documents confirm the support by state agencies and their respective ministries for full control and control on the field of telecommunications, Dr. Hossam Lotfi, legal adviser to the NTRA, confirmed in a radio interview in 2013<\/span> that security practices in the field of telecommunications do not concern The National Emergency Regulatory Authority (NTRA), adding that the \u201cemergency room\u201d does not have a fixed geographical location, and that it is a \u201croom\u201d formed to meet when needed; its membership includes a NTRA member, its vice president, \u00a0who coordinates between mobile companies and the competent authorities in case of public mobilization or crises such as wars, earthquakes and floods, as well as follows up the implementation of recommendations of the \u201cBody\u201d on cooperation and coordination between any of the parties concerned.<\/span><\/p>\nContrary to Lutfi’s assertion, the documents prove that the emergency room was used only to curtail and suppress political opposition, as the report shows. It should be noted here that there is a fully specialized unit to deal with network infiltration, which is completely different from the emergency room. It was established by NTRA in April 2009; it is the unit of the Egyptian center to respond to internet emergencies operated by the CERT Computer Emerge Response Team<\/span>, as the first line of defense against cybercrime.<\/span><\/p>\nThe January revolution.. How did the government shut down Egypt\u2019s windows? <\/b><\/p>\n
The call for protests against the Mubarak regime was not secret. After the mass movement that resulted from the killing of Khaled Said in Alexandria and the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia, it seemed that the situation might go beyond the limited demonstrations against the government and its police force, which the Egyptian street was used to in previous years. \u00a0Upon security information indicating the possibility of major riots on January 25, 2011, a ministerial meeting was held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, January 20, 2011 in the Smart Village chaired by Dr. Ahmed Nazif, former Prime Minister and 6 ministers and leaders, including Major General Habib Al-Adli and former minister of defense Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Minister of Communications Eng. Tarek Kamel and Omar Suleiman, head of General Intelligence, to discuss the various measures in state sectors that should be followed in preparation for the events of January.<\/span><\/p>\nThus, once again surfaced the role of the emergency room to practically implement the experiments of previous years. The Ministerial Committee recommended activating the Telecommunications Law and setting up the Crisis Management Operations Room with the participation of the aforementioned institutions, working 24 hours a day throughout the duration of the events, ensuring the implementation of any necessary measures to implement Article 67 of Law No. 10 of 2003 to regulate telecommunications, which allows sovereign bodies to oblige companies to cut off communications and Internet services in various locations in the Republic in case national security is endangered<\/span><\/p>\nThe case papers indicate that the cutting was executed pursuant to two successive decisions by Major General Habib Al-Adli. The first was issued on Tuesday January 25 until the following morning to include telecommunications and Internet services and is to be implemented starting noon the same day in the area of Tahrir Square in conjunction with the calls for demonstrations. The second was carried out after Al-Adli issued strict instructions to the emergency room more than once on January 27 that telecommunications services should be cut off starting the morning of Friday, January 28, for one day for mobile services in the governorates of “Greater Cairo-Alexandria-Suez-Gharbeya” as well as Internet services all through the Republic as of Thursday evening, January 27 because of eminent danger facing the national security of the country.<\/span><\/p>\nHow did Tahrir protesters reconnect with cyberspace?<\/b><\/p>\n
Despite the paralysis caused by the disconnection, activists who called for the demonstrations of January 25 were able to find and develop alternative solutions and mechanisms to overcome the cut of communications. They were able, each according to their specializations, to publish videos, pictures and information about demonstrations throughout Egypt to the outside world; they constituted the link between Tahrir Square and the international press as well as among individuals inside Egypt.<\/span><\/p>\nBefore communications were completely cut off on 27 January, information<\/span> \u00a0was exchanged about the authorities’ intention to cut communication among demonstrators. No one expected a complete interruption of service, but that the authorities would only block social networking sites. So they exchanged and published programs and methods to break the ban<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\nAt the time, Nourhan<\/span> \u00a0was present at a political meeting preparing for the Wrath Friday demonstration, which began from the area of Imbaba.<\/span><\/p>\nThe city center was completely quiet and silent, resembling a ghost town as she described it. <\/span>Nourhan<\/span> was terrified of the events of the following day and that the regime would commit a collective massacre against the demonstrators. But she felt it was important for those sitting at home to know what was happening. “People need to see… people need to know,” says Nourhan<\/span>. She spent the night of the 27<\/span>th<\/span> making phone calls to her circle of acquaintances outside Egypt, telling them about circulating information of the cut of communication services. \u00a0She said, “They say, they will cut communications tomorrow. If anything happened, you have to act and try to access information on our situation.”<\/span><\/p>\nMona did not have a clear plan for the actions and their organization, nor about sharing information without communication. Still together with others she began collecting numbers of landlines for a network of activists participating in the Wrath Friday demonstrations. <\/span>She asked her brother Nour<\/span>, who was in South Africa at the time, to contact their mother on the landline to receive information about what was happening and spread the news abroad<\/span>. Landlines were the primary means of communication.<\/span><\/p>\nNourhan<\/span> had to take one of her acquaintances who arrived from abroad to participate in the Wrath Friday. Coincidentally, he had a Thuraya phone – a satellite communications network – and once she realized that she asked him not to participate in the demonstration and instead to be in a fixed place, next to a land phone to receive the news and share it with the outside world. \u00a0<\/span>Nourhan<\/span> made several copies of the landline number in preparation for their distribution, and wrote “to communicate with the media or to cover the events of the revolution contact… and ask him to …\u201d A while later the youth could no longer wait and decided to participate in the demonstrations once they arrived in Tahrir square. \u00a0<\/span>Nourhan<\/span> says that during the first hours the events were so fast and violent leaving no space to try to report or document what was happening.<\/span><\/p>\nNourhan<\/span> commuted daily several times to and from Dokki, where her friend’s apartment was located in a side street in the Dokki district of Giza. The apartment was crowded with Egyptian and foreign activists and journalists gathered in a small room they called the “Twitter Hub.” <\/span>Nourhan’s<\/span> friend had opened her house to any of the activists interested in covering the events, after she discovered that the Internet service was still working and was not cut. Here <\/span>Nourhan\u2019s<\/span> primary role with the participation of friends became the monitoring and documentation and sharing of news and information.<\/span><\/p>\nNourhan’s<\/span> friend has a working land line that works and connects to the Internet through Noor, the only Internet company that has not cut off its communication because it was receiving input from the stock market. The Dokki apartment was like a link between what was happening in Tahrir Square and the outside world, and the activists’ posts sent from there were the main source for international media.<\/span><\/p>\n“During the 18 days, most of my words were in English … At the time I didn\u2019t feel like I was talking to people here, but I was talking to human beings interested in following up and covering the situation in Egypt\u201d, says Mona.<\/span><\/p>\nThe phone did not stop ringing since the morning of Saturday, January 29. The Dokki apartment automatically turned into an operating room receiving the numbers of the bodies and the dead from the surrounding of the interior ministry, as well as news and information from other governorates. “The thing I remember most was the description of the people being killed around the Interior Ministry, as if they were being hunted, because every while somebody would call and shout in panic \u201cthey shot somebody.. they shot somebody\u201d, or somebody saying \u201ca car came and threw the corpse of someone.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\nUnlike the Dokki group, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center was like a headquarters for the Front for the Defense of Egyptian Protestors, and through the land line of the Center, members of the Front were receiving names of the arrested during the demonstrations and their places of residence and the network of lawyers, prepare \u00a0and exclusive to be conveyed to the Dokki apartment via the landline or through daily visits to Hisham Mubarak Center in preparation for publishing the updates on social networks and sending them to journalists.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the morning of Wrath Friday, a group of journalists booked a room at the Semiramis Hotel by Corniche El Nil, close to Tahrir Square. They had discovered that the hotel was still connected to the Internet, and the group was taking photographs and visual material to be published on the Internet.<\/span><\/p>\nIn another part of the world, an Egyptian programmer living in Switzerland developed<\/span> an idea to broadcast voice calls via Twitter. On 30 January, Abdel Karim Mardini<\/span> \u00a0announced on his personal social network account about international numbers he developed with friends abroad that enable the caller to connect to the Internet. The service converts voice calls into recorded voice clips that are automatically posted on the talk2tweet service<\/span> account on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the same day the service was launched, Mona called the landline connected to the international service, and received a message saying, “Raise your voice ye Egyptian, to hear an audio tweet press 1, to record a voice tag, press 2”<\/span><\/p>\nNourhan<\/span> presses on 2 and records her message<\/span>, “I am <\/span>Nourhan<\/span> from Cairo. I want the world to know that we have been cut off from the Internet …”<\/span><\/p>\nShe<\/span> says, “There were people in the group who encouraged each other to come go to the square, collect audio files from the people and post them on Twitter. Even if you do not have an Internet number with an international number to call from your mobile to be broadcasted on twitter.. I recorded two audio files to speak to <\/span>Nour<\/span> because <\/span>Nour<\/span> was still in South Africa. I said to him: there is talk that they will cut communication again, but this time I am not worried. This time people know where to go.. there is no confusion about what we should do or how will people know about what is happening\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n\f<\/span><\/p>\nChapter II: Impact of the cut of communication<\/b><\/p>\n
Communication and Internet services are closely linked to a package of rights and freedoms that are only enjoyed through those two services. So the cutting, blocking or disabling of these services is a clear violation of those rights and freedoms. In this regard, the Administrative Court of Justice confirmed in the grounds of its ruling that cutting off telecommunications and SMS services on mobile phones and Internet services violates a number of rights and freedoms, including “freedom of expression”, “right to communication”, “right to privacy” “the right to use spectrum”, “the right to know” and the related “right to flow and circulation of information” and its association with the \u201cright to development\u201d and the \u201cright to life\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\nThe ruling was based on the damage caused to individuals by the decision to cut off communications and the right to communication as an essential prerequisite for citizenship.<\/span><\/p>\n“In view of the nature and interest of both the plaintiffs and the litigants, it is established that the right to communication is a basic human need and a basis for every social citizen, to which individuals as well as societies are entitled; it is a right that cannot be fulfilled except in the availability of its tools, which means the right of participation of individuals, groups and organization, irrespective of their social, economic or cultural levels, and irrespective of sex, language, religion or geographical location, in the balanced use of communication means and services and information resources, and to maximize public participation in the communication process , where the role of individuals and social groups is not limited to receiving media or communication and Internet services, but extends to positive participation, as well as the right to communicate, and the right of the individual to access information, knowledge and be informed of the experiences of others, contact them and discuss and influence social and political leaders to serve the individual and the community, and therefore when the dispute is related to this right, citizenship becomes the nature of the interest and its basis\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\nFrom the grounds of judgment in the lawsuit<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\nIn addition to the inviolability of the rights of social communication, the freedom of circulation of information imposes the right to receive and impart information and ideas and their exchange with others through communications and internet services. Without the ability to obtain information and to have the right to exchange and communicate them to the public, freedom of opinion will have no real meaning within society, and without community communication through the Internet at home and abroad none of the freedoms would be existing or have a tangible presence.<\/span><\/p>\nIn addition to the impact of cutting off communications on fundamental rights and freedoms, the Administrative Court of Justice based its ruling on fining EL-Adli, Mubarak and Nazif 540 million pounds due to the losses sustained by the national economy due to the act of interrupting communication. These losses were recorded by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in a statement<\/span> \u00a0it released a few days after the communication cut, and was endorsed by the court and the Information and Decision Making Support Center of the Council of Ministers.<\/span><\/p>\nAccording to initial estimates by the OECD, the Egyptian government’s cut of Internet services in the country for several days cost Egypt $ 90 million and its economic impact could be greater in the long term. “Interrupted services – telecommunications and the Internet – represent 3% to 4% of GDP, i.e. represent a loss of approximately $ 18 million per day,” the organization said in a brief statement.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Paris-based organization said the economic impact could be greater in the long term, because the interception affected local and international companies working in the field of advanced technology and provide services outside of Egypt as well.<\/span><\/p>\nApart from the OECD, official and informal reports, both domestic and international, have spoken roughly about the losses caused by cut of communications in Egypt. The court estimated the amount of compensation based on these reports.<\/span><\/p>\n“Cutting communication means you cannot call a doctor or ambulance to save a critical condition, neither the patient’s mother to say her goodbyes, nor her young children to see their mother’s face for the last time alive. You cannot summon the worker who returned home with the key that connects you to the \u2018Doppler\u2019, an equipment which detects blood thrombosis. \u00a0Cutting of communication means that you will stay by the side of your little sister, watching her die for 10 hours, while she is aware that the whole hospital refuses to help her. Cutting communication means that you cannot contact an official to tell the doctor that critical cases should be allowed to enter the ICU, even if they are not officers or soldiers, contrary to ministry of interior instructions. \u00a0Cutting communication means you cannot call a friend to cry because your little sister has died<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDespite the fact that seven years have passed since the cutting of communication in Egypt with its subsequent serious damage, we cannot know the number of victims who have lost their lives because they could not contact the outside world and ask for help. It is like they have been silently hidden behind a curtain. Although official and non-official reports, both international and local, gave a detailed account of the losses of the Egyptian economy as a result of the communication cut, none of them mentioned the deaths during the five days in which Egypt was hidden from the world, where citizens lost contact with each other. This is either due to lack of transparency and the block of information, which is the way the Egyptian state always follows in similar events, or the loss of information; in the absence of channels of communication, information becomes more difficult to document. Thus, the number of victims remain unknown, a black hole in the memory of the revolution. We have only received two cases where the cutting of communication was the main cause of a death. It is certain that there are other cases that authors of the report have not been able to contact, because there are no clues that may indicate their identity. This report may be a tool for identifying new situations and reviving our collective memory.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the evening of January 27, 2011, just a few hours before the cutting of communication, <\/span>Hala<\/span> received a phone call informing her that her younger sister had suffered an unknown health crisis. <\/span>Hala<\/span> suggested to her brother-in-law to take her to El Shorouk Hospital, a private hospital where the younger sister would receive optimal care. <\/span>Huda<\/span> lives in one of the buildings near the Ministry of Interior, one of the most tense and secured places on that day, which made crossing with the ill Huda through the military barracks almost impossible.<\/span><\/p>\nIn her testimony to AFTE, <\/span>Hala<\/span> said<\/span>: \u00a0“I went down quickly from Nasr City; the streets were difficult; I arrived and he called me saying he could not cross because of the tension around the ministry of interior.. <\/span>Huda<\/span> had just given birth. Her little daughter was born in October. Her husband had to take her to the French Kasr Al Aini hospital. When I arrived she was still conscious. She was very tired. We asked them: what can we do? But the doctors were in a state where they were not responding to the person talking to them, nor the patients nor the special cases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nHala<\/span> describes the scene on the eve of Wrath Friday from inside the French Kasr Al Aini hospital. According to her, it seemed like the end of the world. Something mysterious was happening in the outside world, suggesting a stormy change destroying everything; this reflected on the indifferent performance of doctors and nurses. No one was doing their duty now, and no one cared to take the young lady into the ICU to receive the care she needs.<\/span><\/p>\nThe time was almost midnight; now all cell phones were out of service. It is then that the doctors realized that <\/span>Hoda<\/span> had a stroke and needs a Doppler to locate the clots. Doctors tell her that the person in charge of the device has to go home with the power switch, a tradition followed by the employee every week on Thursdays, and is summoned by phone in case of emergency arrives; that was impossible after the communication was cut and the hospital land line was out of order.<\/span><\/p>\nThe doctor told <\/span>Hala<\/span> that it was usual in such cases to call the employee from his home, but as a result of the cut of communications this was impossible. <\/span>Hala<\/span> said: “We remained several hours in this situation and she was conscious and could use the toilet. It seems a stroke drives the body to get rid of its fluids. She kept telling us to take care of her children. At the end they told us if we wished we could take her to the Sherif Mukhtar unit, which is specialized in brain strokes.”<\/span><\/p>\nThe condition of a person with a stroke becomes more serious when that person moves. The case of <\/span>Huda<\/span> required that she remains immobile as much as possible. If necessary, the patient is transferred under medical supervision in a well equipped ambulance; but they had to transfer her in their private cars to the brain stroke unit, because there were no ambulances. <\/span><\/p>\nThe Hisham Mukhtar unit doctors carelessly performed an examination of <\/span>Huda<\/span>, stressing that her health is good because she has not lost consciousness, and that tomorrow morning they will take the necessary measures. <\/span>Huda\u2019s<\/span> condition began to deteriorate; her hands stopped moving followed by her legs; then there was a slight slurring of her tongue. At that moment, <\/span>Hala<\/span> wished she could contact her mother to see her youngest daughter, perhaps for the last time, or contact one of her doctor friends to reassure them about her condition or even contact another hospital to ensure the availability of a Doppler to take her sister there. \u00a0A little while later <\/span>Huda<\/span>