The return of the baltagiya?

The evening of Friday June 13, plainclothes thugs attacked the Global March to Gaza at the Ismailia gate. In its extended coverage, Al Manassa documented civilians in galabiyyas (traditional gowns) assaulting participants under the watchful eyes of security forces. Protesters were repressed, physically harassed, and beaten before being forcibly removed. Reports of multiple arrests also circulated.

These civilian assaults were carried out with remarkable coordination: “Police opened the cordon to let in groups of three to six men in galabiyas with faces covered in scarves. They would beat someone and drag them out before resealing the cordon. One of the solidarity activists who endured this was wearing a white shirt, now covered in blood, as was his head. Screams continued, accompanied by the police-protected ‘civilian’ assaults. I also noted the absence of any ambulances,” Al Manassa's journalist reported.

But where do these baltagiya/thugs —whom state media euphemistically labeled “adjacent farm owners” without calling their assaults what they were—come from?

Globalizing the Vietnamese model

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the US developed and exported its counterinsurgency strategies as a globalized model for suppressing rebellions. These plans relied on deploying the most effective actors for suppressing dissent, regardless of their affiliation with formal military or police apparatuses.

In Egypt, this coincided with the end of Sadat’s era and the rise of Mubarak. Police began to assert new forms of dominance over working-class neighborhoods. Their methods involved leveraging civilians with criminal records to intimidate the people. These civilians operated within regionally segmented networks and worked for local police departments, not necessarily by choice.

Once someone is detained, a criminal record is created by the Ministry of Interior. If labeled a “hardened criminal,” the individual is subsumed into a system that forges an enduring relationship with the local police station.

This mechanism expanded dramatically after 9/11 and the US occupation of Iraq, when global “War on Terror” policies began to proliferate. Counterinsurgency strategies became part of a global security playbook, driven by inter-agency cooperation and the professional training of police and security bodies.

Egypt, through its longstanding security collaboration with the US, incorporated these counterinsurgency tools into its internal security practices. Under the leadership of then–Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly, criminal records were digitized into a comprehensive police database.

Given the chronic understaffing of Egypt’s police relative to the dense population, thugs evolved into a primary auxiliary force, assisting and even protecting the police. Operating in civilian clothing, they carried out acts of violence that allowed security services to avoid appearing in uniform. Thugs and their networks became a low-cost, readily deployable resource, serving to secure all sectors of the state.

A Political Manifestation

In Egypt’s political context, the public emergence of thugs is often traced to Black Wednesday, May 25, 2005. On that day, thugs assaulted women protesters physically and sexually at the entrance of the Journalists’ Syndicate. The late journalist Nawal Ali responded by filing legal complaints.

But the clearest political manifestation came during the 2011 revolution. When police forces fled after the “Friday of Rage” on January 28, thugs disappeared from the streets — a disappearance that underscored their dependency on orders from above. They resurfaced shortly afterwards during the Battle of the Camel, when a thug network from Nazlet El-Semman was deployed.

During the July 2011 sit-ins, thug networks from Abdeen, Al-Zawya Al-Hamra, and Bulaq Abou El-Ela were activated. In the Maspero Massacre of October 2011, the Bulaq Abou El-Ela network was used again.

Between June 2012 and July 2014, during the spate of mass sexual assaults in Tahrir Square, networks from both Bulaq Abou El-Ela and Abdeen were involved. In the 2019 protests triggered by contractor Mohamed Ali, the Bulaq Abou El-Ela network made yet another appearance.

In all these episodes, the aim was clear: suppress dissent, instill fear, and delegitimize protest.

Yet thugs were also deployed to intimidate journalists protesting in May 2016 in response to the storming of their syndicate building. Many were arrested after demonstrations against the Tiran and Sanafir agreement, prompting the syndicate’s general assembly to demand the dismissal of the interior minister.

Moreover, thugs also showed up at Tora Prison gate in June 2020 to intimidate the family of activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. Then most recently, in September of last year, as Ahmed Tantawy called on supporters to endorse him at notary offices in preparation for his presidential bid, thug networks were dispatched nationwide to assault citizens and prevent them from backing him.

A Daily Manifestation

Aside from politics, thugs exist as a constant in daily life — a phenomenon we might call the commodification of violence. This is a concept well-documented in pop culture, most notably in the film Ibrahim Labyad. There, we witness the lives of Ibrahim/Ahmed El-Sakka and his associates, all revolving around violence linked to Cairo’s drug trade.

We also see how the state asserts its presence in the prison where Ibrahim is confined, and notably, the defined geographical territories of the thugs’ activities, which no one is allowed to trespass or exceed.

Historically, this is echoed in the 1931 Mudhakkarat Futuwwa/Memoirs of a Gangster by Youssef Haggag, republished and appended with a history of thuggery in Cairo by Salah Eissa. It’s also explored in Nashtiri Kulla Shay/We Buy Everything, a book co-authored by several writers including this article’s author: “The material commodification of public spaces is deeply intertwined with economic and capitalist operations. Violence is likewise commodified, functioning as a means to effect this material commodification. Consequently, violence in its diverse manifestations is constantly reproduced due to conflicting interests and power struggles.”

The book details various forms of violence, including thuggery, as practices deployed to assert influence, control, and provide “protection.” Thus, violence is commodified when it is offered as a tool for achieving profit, mainly through dominance over public spaces.

A Persistent Manifestation

The thugs who attacked the Global March to Gaza on the road to Ismailia did not originate there. They are simply the latest expression of Egypt’s entrenched thug networks, which are politically and socially ingrained.

The phenomenon is linked to the operations and hierarchy of security agencies and the Egyptian government’s economic and political needs. Practices like “ballot box-stuffing” in elections are a clear example.

Since 2013, the state’s strategic use of these networks has intensified. Their members have been conscripted into public displays of loyalty: waving propaganda banners, cheering at polling stations, and dancing in front of ballot boxes during elections and referendums.

What happened to the Gaza convoy is a “routine” security measure used to suppress protests and grassroots mobilization. The only novelty this time was its deployment against foreigners, turning the incident into an international scandal.

But even that scandal will likely be normalized by Egyptians’ desensitization to such scenes. On the road to Ismailia, the thugs didn’t “return” because they never left. They are an ever-present part of life.