CAIRO (AP) – Police have arrested four members of a satirical street group that mocked Egypt’s president and his supporters in video clips posted online, the latest in an escalating crackdown on dissent that illustrates the government’s diminishing tolerance for criticism.
According to Mahmoud Othman, the lawyer for the street performers, the four were arrested late on Monday in Cairo. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday they are likely to face charges of inciting protests and insulting state institutions. A fifth member of the group, 19-year-old Ezzedeen Khaled, faces the same charges but was released on bail Tuesday, three days after he was detained.
The four arrested Monday are Mohammed Adel, Mohammed Dessouki, Mohammed Yahya and Mohammed Gabr. The lawyer said their ages range between 19 and 25. The sixth member of the group, Mohammed Zein, has not been detained, Othman said.
The six-man group, Awlad el-Shawarea, or “Street Children,” has a large social media following. It shoots selfie-style clips on the streets that deal mostly with social and political issues. The group is part of a new, street-based art, music and graffiti movement born out of Egypt’s 2011 uprising and fueled by liberal youths opposed to the rule of either Islamists or the military.
Some of the group’s recent work has directly mocked President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. One video was entitled “el-Sissi, my president, made things worse” while another clip mocked the president’s habit of ending speeches with “Long live Egypt!” and his recent reference to advice by his late mother to “never to covet what belongs to others.”