Dank, a new youth movement came into the spotlight recently as media outlets circulated a video of three masked men claiming to be movement members from Suez and calling for protests on Tuesday, September 9 under the banner of “the revolution of the poor.”
In the released video, the movement’s members criticised the government for “the suffering of the poor and wasting Egyptians’ rights.”
The movement’s name translates into “hardship” or “bleakness”.
Digging deeper, Aswat Masriya found older videos released by the movement where it announces its launch to “achieve the goals of the January 25 revolution; supporting the poor and calling for decent living conditions for all Egyptians.”
The movement’s abrupt appearance stirred controversy over its identity and whether it is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood also called for protests on Tuesday under the same banner.
Some drew comparison between the video and another video released by the so-called Helwan Brigades. The latter video was released in late August showing armed, masked men flashing the Rabaa sign and saying; “we are sick of the Brotherhood’s peaceful [approach] … we will deal with the police using arms …”
The police said shortly afterwards it arrested those who appeared in the latter video.
The movement’s formation
The movement released its first video on August 3, entitled “announcing the founding conference for the Dank movement.” Their second video, released on August 19, was entitled “turning the Dank campaign to a popular movement.”
Like other self-proclaimed “revolutionary” movements, Dank set up its own twitter account on August 1 and created a Facebook page on August 2 to “communicate with the audience.”
Aswat Masriya was able to get in touch with the movement’s spokeman Sami Abdel Shaheed through the Facebook page.
Abdel Shaheed said the movement was founded on July 20 by a group of youth, some of them politically active in Cairo and Alexandria. He added that the movement’s founders come from a mixture of diverse political factions.
Why the masks?
On why the movement members are insistent on covering their faces throughout the videos they produce, Abdel Shaheed says the members were previously engaged in other political activities “which saw some of our friends arrested from their homes after being accused of being Muslim Brotherhood members.”
“Since then, we have been persecuted by security forces,” Abdel Shaheed says. “We have therefore decided to appear masked, fearing the security forces’ oppression.”
Abdel Shaheed doesn’t provide a clear response as to why he agrees – among other leaders presented by the movement – to reveal his identity to media outlets. He stops at saying that movement members discuss whether they will take off the masks and reveal their features “after the security persecutions subside, so that the people would rest assured regarding our [identities] and goals.”
What does Dank want?
Abdel Shaheed says the idea behind the movement stemmed from “discovering a bias by the ruling regime and [Prime Minister Ibrahim] Mehleb’s cabinet to society’s affluent class  at the expense of the working class and the poor …” He questioned the existence of social justice, three years after the January 25 revolution which initially called for it.
The spokesman added that the movement decided that its demands would only focus on social issues rather than political ones.
“If society is largely divided and witnessing a clear case of political polarisation, then raising political demands becomes inappropriate and futile in such circumstances,” Abdel Shaheed says.
Slogans posted to Dank’s Facebook page are almost exclusively social and economic. They include: “we want to eat”, “so that poverty doesn’t nestle in houses”, and “because health is deteriorating”.
Muslim Brotherhood Connection?
Security forces accuse Dank of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Suez Security Director Tarek al-Gazzar told Aswat Masriya that those who appeared in the video released from Suez have been spotted and will be arrested.
“Those elements aim to burn out the police in light of a Brotherhood plot implemented after the group failed to achieve their destructive goals of creating chaos in the country,” Gazzar said. He added that Homeland Security forces are currently tracking the location where the said video was uploaded to quickly arrest those who uploaded it.
Another security source who preferred to remain anonymous told Aswat Masriya that investigations conducted by the Suez Security Headquarters indicate “a family relation between a member of the group and the Muslim Brotherhood.” He added that security sources believe it is likely that Dank is made up of Brotherhood members funded by the Brotherhood.
The source said that Homeland Security has been following up with the Dank movement for almost a month (since its launch) to conduct sufficient investigations regarding the movement and its members. He added that such investigations were not announced before for “security reasons.”
But Abdel Shaheed denies that Dank is a Muslim Brotherhood front. “The movement includes members from all factions and affiliations,” he said. “We have members who belong to the Brotherhood, socialists, liberals and seculars. At the end, they are all suffering Egyptians with legitimate demands regardless of their affiliations … this doesn’t mean we support a specific faction.”
How serious is it?
When the movement started in July, Abdel Shaheed said it had one central office and 17 executive offices in 17 governorates nationwide.
The movement’s coordinator Islam al-Moslemani told media outlets that “the movement involves around 150 thousand Egyptians who believe in it and defend the rights of the underprivileged.”
There is no independent way to verify these claims, but the movement’s seriousness and its ability to rally supporters was put to the test today.
Its call for nationwide demonstrations was largely ignored. Dank posted pictures of a few small protests on its Facebook page, and police announced it arrested 24 people for protesting in downtown Cairo, but otherwise there was little to suggest that Dank presented a serious challenge to Egyptian authorities.