CAIRO —
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Ahmed Ammar figures it is only a matter of time before
the Egyptian government comes looking for him. ¶
Three weeks ago, soldiers arrested his 17-year-old
brother after they caught him trying to hide a flier
supporting deposed Islamist President Mohammed
Morsi as he waited to pass through a military
checkpoint. Riot police threw him in a prison cell with
other suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood
in the northern city of Kafr elSheikh. There, according to Ammar, they told him: “You will never see life again.”
That same night, riot police arrested his older brother in Cairo’s
Nasr City for taking part in an anti-government protest. With both
of his brothers now behind bars
and tainted by supposed links
to the Brotherhood — which has
been branded as a terrorist organization by the military generals
who preside over Egypt — Ammar
is resigned to the seeming inevitability that he may soon join them.
“This government is more oppressive than Mubarak,” Ammar
tells The WorldPost, referring to
the dictator who ruled Egypt for
three decades. “Anyone can be arrested.”
Three years after the revolution
that toppled Hosni Mubarak and
seemingly launched a new era of
democracy and rule of law, Egypt
has essentially landed back at the
beginning. Today, much like before, anyone who dares challenge
the government invites swift arrest — suspected Brotherhood
members, secular activists, and
even journalists.
Before mass protests ended his
autocratic rule, Mubarak maintained power — even in the face of
economic weakness and social ferment — by relying on a formidable
security apparatus to crush any