Egypt’s military junta doesn’t take dissent well, but the signs are that public anger at the Interior Ministry is simply out of control, with even figures from the junta’s own state-run media demanding Maj. Gen. Abdel-Ghaffar’s ouster as Minister of the Interior.
Violent crackdowns on the media, including police raids on press syndicates and arrests of opposition reports were already fueling growing criticism among journalists, calls which only grew when the Interior Ministry accidentally released several secret memos to the press.
The memos detailed the ministry’s planning to silence media unrest, including insisting that the ministry could never be seen to backtrack from any operation or admit any mistake, saying the goal of police is to undermine the credibility of the journalists.
Being so determined to be unwilling to admit its mistakes, it remains to be seen what the Interior Ministry will do about its own leaking of memos to the press. So far they’ve refused to comment on them, and blamed “technical malfunctions” for the leaks.
“Technical malfunctions” sounds a lot like Clinton’s “bureaucratic snafus.”