Interior Minister Major General Mohamed Ibrahim has rebuked news over monitoring Facebook and Twitter as being a way to reduce freedoms.
Rather it tackles the “dangers of social media,” he claimed.
He explained that the new system has nothing to do with crackdown on freedoms, but instead targets controlling security problems that could spread via social media and hence have an impact on security situation.
In press remarks on Monday, Ibrahim said, “the new system will tackle security issues related to terrorism, manufacturing of bombs,methods of obtaining materials used in it as well as methods of remote detonation and carrying out blasts and assassinations. The system is considered an accomplishment by the ministry. It does not reduce freedoms or intervene within privacy. The ministry never sought this. However, it is in charge of protecting rights and preserving freedoms.”
Earlier, Major General Abdel Fattah Othman, deputy interior minister for public relations, said monitoring the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter to reach perpetrators of attacks is a ‘scientific accomplishment in favor of the ministry’.
In a phone call with a talk show on privately-owned Mehwar TV channel on Sunday, Othman said, “We seek to arrest those who carry out attacks that target the innocent. We do not seek intervention within private issues of anyone.”
“The United States watches calls. If anything that could harm national security was found, it monitors it. The system made by Interior Ministry does not interfere within privacy of anyone,” he added.
“Interior Ministry will not break laws. We respect right of citizen in knowledge,” he said.
Othman also stressed that monitoring Facebook and Twitter is not a return to Mubarak’s era.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
