Egypt disrupts calls on social media apps in name of terrorism

Egypt disrupted calls over social media apps including FaceTime, Viber, Skype, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp in April, reports Nextgov.

On Palm Sunday over 40 people were killed when twin bomb attacks hit two churches, one in Tanta on the Nile Delta and one in Alexandria. Since then President Sisi has implemented a three-month state of emergency through which he has sought to crackdown on social media as an extension of his policy to control the opposition.

Under the emergency law Egyptian authorities can monitor personal communications without judicial oversight. At the beginning of April a lawyer from Alexandria was sentenced to 10 years in prison and given a five-year ban from using the Internet for posts on Facebook regarded as derogatory towards the president.

At the end of April 3G networks and mobile phones were shut down for hours in the Sinai Peninsula after an attack was launched on St. Catherine’s Monastery, whilst security services searched for insurgents.

The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority denied it was disrupting services: “there is not truth to the rumours circulating.”

Read: ‘Sisification’ of the media in Egypt

Egypt is no stranger to blocking Internet activity. Last year Egypt blocked the encrypted app Signal; during the 2011 uprising Mubarak famously turned off the Internet so that activists could not use Twitter and Facebook to report on the protests and arrange meeting points.

As Nextgov reports there are also economic incentives for blocking calls on the social media networks – local telcos who are losing revenue due to free calls.

Egypt has one of the slowest Internet speeds worldwide.