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Jan 25, 2016-2016

Egypt

Condom Protests

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ACTIVISTS/ACT.GROUPS/DESCRIPTION OF THE GROUP

Shady Abu Zaid

TARGET

Egypt Police Officers

WIDELY HELD BELIEF

Freedom of speech should be allowed.

CASE NARRATIVE

Issue/Opponent: Egyptian authorities initiated a “police day” in the country to honor all their police officers on January 25th. That day also marked the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the social uprising in Tahrir Square against then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. In 2011 this revolution led to a period where there was a violent conflict between security forces and protestors. Dilemma Action: To honor the day, Egyptian comedian Shady Abu Zaid decided to show his appreciation for the police officers by handing out balloons that were, in reality, condoms to them in Tahrir Square. On the condoms, the comedian wrote heartfelt messages on each of there where he said “From the youth of Egypt to the police on January 25th.” While doing this, he did not encounter any fear. He also filmed the whole display of mockery and the video was later uploaded to social media where it received over 1.8 million views on Facebook. Outcome: There were charges made against Shady Abu Zaird hours after the video was posted and then Abuzaid posted a statement where he elaborated that he did not mean to offend anyone and that he was sorry for posting a video. However, the video was seen by many viewers online and it made the police officers look ridiculous.

PRIMARY STRUGGLE/GOAL

Accountability / Corruption
Pro-Democracy

DA TACTICS USED

Humorous skits and pranks

Taunting officials

CASE NARRATIVE WRITER

SUCCESS METRICS

5 / 12

(MC) Media Coverage

(OR) Opponent response

(REFR) Dilemma action reframed the narrative of the opponent

(RF) Dilemma action reduced fear and/or apathy among the activists

Laugtivism

PART OF A LARGER CAMPAIGN

0 / 3

RESOURCES

Project documentation

Dilemma Actions Coding Guidebook

Case study documentation

Dilemma_Actions_Analysis_Dataset

CC BY 4.0 Deed, Attribution 4.0 International

SOURCES

Online, Ahram. 2016. “Egypt’s prosecution investigates condom balloon prank,” Retrieved July 23, 2023. (https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/186059/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-prosecution-investigates-condom-balloon-pra.aspx).


Tomo News US. 2016. “Condom balloons: Egyptian celeb Shady Abu Zaid pranks cops in Tahrir Square on Police Day,” YouTube. Retrieved July 23, 2023. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=E4l6iAGuams).


AbuZaid, Shady H. 2016. “‘Condom prank’ video lands two Egyptian TV personalities in hot water – video,” Retrieved July 23, 2023. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/jan/27/condom-prank-video-lands-two-egyptian-tv-personalities-in-hot-water-video).

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