CAIRO — A joint 20-member team composed of agents from the Censorship Authority, the Taxation Authority, National Security Agency and the Ministry of Manpower raided Townhouse Gallery and Rawabet Theater in Cairo on Dec. 28.

As relayed to Al-Monitor by one Townhouse employee who spoke on condition of anonymity, seven individuals in civilian clothes who identified themselves as Censorship Authority agents searched the hall and offices, including personal computers, and asked to see the IDs, official documents and licenses of employees and the gallery, without producing a search warrant. Scores of public officials from various entities flocked to the gallery to continue searching the premises and question employees for approximately three hours, prior to allowing them to leave after making copies of their IDs and confiscating a number of exhibits.

Barely 24 hours after that raid, a security force entered the Merritt Publishing House located near Tahrir Square, arresting an employee there and transferring him to the public prosecutor’s office, which released him the same day, Dec. 29.

Maj. Gen. Abu Bakr Abdulkarim, an Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman, denied the ministry’s involvement in the raids. He told Al-Monitor by phone that the ministry only acts within the framework of applicable laws. He said that the Ministry of Culture was behind the raids, and that the Interior Ministry had nothing to do with the whole affair.