Egypt warns against inciting violence online

Egyptian authorities have threatened users of social media platforms inciting violence in their online posts with arrest and prosecution.

The country’s interior ministry made the warning on Thursday, adding that authorities are using “modern technology to track” such perpetrators.

Ten members of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently declared a “terrorist organization” by the military-installed Egyptian government, have already been arrested for such acts, the Interior Ministry said.

It further stated that the online tracking technology is already in place and will be used to stop calls for violence against police and civilians on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.

The recent arrests, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, were the first to target a group for allegedly administering social media pages.

Such allegations concern dozens of Facebook pages that Egyptian army-led authorities claim have called for protests against the government and denounced the police. Some of the pages were allegedly set up within the past two weeks.

The Interior Ministry’s statement further accused those detained of using social media to “incite violence, target citizens, make bombs and carry threatening messages.”

The development comes as Egyptian military and security forces have arrested thousands of Brotherhood members and killed hundreds more in clashes since Egypt’s Army Chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013.