Screen technician arrested for Faisal advertising billboards criticizing Sisi

The Interior Ministry said that an “electronic screen technician” was arrested on Tuesday for his alleged involvement in broadcasting “offensive statements” in Faisal, apparently concluding a back and forth between pro and anti-state messaging that played out over the beginning of the week on the LED advertising billboards of Giza.

The ministry statement, which did not elaborate further, referred to an incident on Sunday night which saw a billboard in the crowded area of central Giza display images critical of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi — a rare sight amid the tight control enforced by the state over the media and public spaces in Egypt.

Videos circulated on social media that were shot by passers-by speculating that the billboard was  hacked. The Sunday night display showed a series of images portraying President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as a murderer and a thief, and warning him of heavenly retribution.

Security forces were deployed to the area on Sunday in response, according to eyewitnesses cited by the Egyptian Network for Human Rights, with personnel stopping and questioning several citizens in the street. Video footage from the area which Mada Masr viewed showed several police cars parked in the area the following morning. 

In what appeared to be a state response to the incident playing out over the following days, several billboards across Giza and Cairo displayed images and phrases criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood and “reminding people of the group’s crimes.” Media outlets affiliated with the state also posted videos and images displaying love and appreciation for the president.

An unnamed worker at an ad agency quoted by ENHR on Tuesday said that his company was directly given orders by the National Security Agency to display anti-Muslim Brotherhood ads on its billboards with which the company complied.

A series of unconfirmed claims ensued about the party responsible for the critical images, implicating various parties. The first accused were the Sudanese community in Egypt. In a now deleted post, a BBC correspondent in Egypt said on Monday via her personal X account that security forces had apprehended Sudanese individuals for involvement in the incident. Citing what she described as an informed source, she stated that “several Sudanese individuals had hacked into a medical laboratory's advertising screen and will be brought before the Public Prosecution for investigation.” Unofficial Facebook pages likewise claimed that Sudanese nationals were detained for the incident in posts including photographs of two Sudanese individuals.

However, the Interior Ministry quickly  released a statement on Monday denying claims that “security forces had arrested Sudanese individuals for engaging in offensive activities,” without specifying the incident in Faisal. 

The director and deputy director of Alfa Laboratories, whose services were originally displayed on the electronic billboard, were also arrested for investigation of the incident, according to fact-checking website Saheeh Masr. When Mada Masr contacted Alfa Laboratories’ official page, the company responded to say that the laboratories are not involved in the investigations and do not own the billboard, which they said belongs to an advertising agency that is currently being investigated in relation to the incident by “sovereign state authorities.”

Authorities ultimately pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated as a terrorist organization in Egypt, as the party responsible for broadcasting the content. Following its Tuesday arrest of the “electronic screen technician,” the Interior Ministry added that the arrested technician “confessed to committing the incident at the instigation of online committees run by members of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group who have fled abroad.”