Egypt’s New Police State - NYTimes.com
By SARA KHORSHID NOV. 16, 2014
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/egypts-new-police-state.html?_r=0
CAIRO — Egypt seems to be headed back toward the 1960s, when Gamal Abdel Nasser set a precedent for the whole Arab world by creating a police state that brutally suppressed dissidents and instilled fear among its citizens.
Last week, on what seemed a calm Tuesday afternoon, I witnessed firsthand what it means to live in a hypernationalist atmosphere where ordinary citizens, encouraged by the state and allied media, snitch on fellow Egyptians.
I was sitting at a Cairo café with my sister and Le Monde Diplomatique’s editor, Alain Gresh, discussing the situation in Egypt when another customer at the café got up and yelled at us: “You are ruining the country!” We tried to ignore her. But we didn’t realize that she had reported to police officers outside that a foreigner and two Egyptian ladies were plotting against Egypt.