Mogahed Abdel Azim, a former official in charge of the State Information Services (SIS) print shops, said on Tuesday the current president of the SIS, Ismail Khairat, was involved in incitement against peaceful demonstrators during the 25 January revolution.
Speaking at a conference on the corruption of authority at Hisham Mubarak Law Center in downtown Cairo, Abdel Azim said that the SIS press center portrayed foreign correspondents as agents and spies from foreign countries in order to thwart the revolution.
He added that the press center played a role in the assaults that targeted the demonstrators on 2 February 2011, the incident known as the “Battle of the Camel.”
“Khairat held a press conference during the revolution at the Egyptian Museum and told foreign reporters that this was only an uprising that would not succeed in toppling Mubarak,” Abdel Azim added.
Khairat was also involved in printing a million posters of Mubarak after the revolution, Abdel Azim said, adding that these posters were distributed among the former President’s supporters outside Cairo Criminal Court during the early sessions of the Mubarak trial.
He added that SIS paid 45,000 pounds sterling to an advertising agency in London, another 35,000 Euros to an agency in Paris and US$250,000 to one in Washington for them to promote the image of Mubarak’s son, Gamal.
Abdel Azim said SIS printed 10,000 copies of a book on the role of civil society organizations after the revolution and distributed them to Egypt’s embassies and consulates all over the world, but the military council confiscated them because the book recognizes the role of the April 6 Youth Movement, the Kefaya Movement and ElBaradei supporters in creating the political climate of the revolution.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
