After targeted surveillance, car theft, journalist Rasha Azab awaits authorities’ response

Journalist Rasha Azab has accused the interior minister and the head of the National Security Agency of orchestrating recent threats against her and surveilling her movements, part of a pursuit that culminated in the theft of her car in recent days.

Azab’s car was stolen from a site in Zamalek, Cairo, near the Spanish ambassador’s house and the Chinese Embassy, the journalist said in a statement about the incident she posted online on November 7. She later clarified that the theft took place on November 5.

Prior to its theft, she said she was subjected to surveillance as she drove, naming a number of sites where she was monitored. 

Two days after her car was stolen, Azab reported that she was followed by two individuals in downtown Cairo. Local residents caught the individuals, detained them and took pictures of them, after they were seen repeatedly surveilling Azab’s movements over the past month. When police were notified, officers from Daher police station took the suspects to the station and directed Azab to meet with the head of investigations to initiate legal proceedings. 

However, after a two-hour wait, an investigation officer informed her that they could not file a report and that the suspects had "escaped from the officers due to crowding," despite the fact that she and other witnesses saw the suspects outside the station entrance.

Azab described the incidents as attempts to intimidate her, speaking to Mada Masr about the series of events. She noted that her car was stolen following a recent protest outside the Journalists Syndicate, during which journalists gathered to condemn Egypt for approving the passage of an Israeli warship through the Suez Canal. 

The protest was organized "after the space that emerged after the war broke out disappeared,” Azab said.

After Israel launched its aggression on the Gaza Strip in October last year, a number of rare protests were held in Egypt’s tightly controlled public spaces. Sizeable demonstrations took place in Alexandria and in Cairo, where protestors reached Tahrir Square for the first time in years. Over 100 people were arrested from the protests, however, with many held for long periods in remand detention.

A single day of demonstrations was held at universities on October 22 of last year  after public authorities called for marches supporting both the Egyptian state and Palestinians.

Since then, other protest activities have been all but restricted to occasional gatherings on the steps of the Journalists Syndicate.

“We wanted to assert that this voice would persist, and that the fight for space would continue as well," Azab continued to Mada Masr. 

Azab said she filed an initial police report about the theft of her car and was summoned by the prosecution to give a statement on Saturday.

She published posts online on Saturday to say that the Qasr al-Nil Prosecution Office had yet to receive police records of the theft, and said that she had been informed previously by the head of investigations at the office that they saw the incident on surveillance footage, but that he had refused to show it to her.

Journalists Syndicate head Khaled al-Balshy has also filed a report with the public prosecutor and a complaint with the interior minister calling for the provision of legal protection for Azab and an investigation into the pursuit and violations she has been subjected to.

The Journalists Syndicate’s report, of which Mada Masr reviewed a copy, called for legal action against the offenders who pursued Azab, threatened her safety and stole her car. 

It also condemned the Daher police station for failing to take the necessary legal measures in this incident and denying Azab her constitutional and legal right to file a report against the two individuals who pursued her, according to the syndicate's statement on Sunday.