Three more arrested for leaking high school exams via Facebook

Tuesday 07-06-2016 04:19 PM

Students take their general secondary exams in Gamal Abdel Nasser school in Dokki. Aswat Masriya/ June 2016

CAIRO, June 7 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt’s interior ministry announced the arrest of an administrator of a Facebook page that leaks high school exam questions one day after the detention of a university student and 12 officials for the same reason.

The general secondary certificate, Thanaweya Amma, is held in the final year of Egypt's secondary education stage before students are set to enter university.

The suspect reportedly admitted to running the Facebook page and leaking the tests in collaboration with other social media users.

The interior ministry said in a statement that it used modern techniques to gather data. Data collected confirmed that a 24-year old called Khaled ran the Facebook page called "As You Like", and published pictures that contained exams' questions and answers.

Two others were also arrested in the Beheira province on suspicion of running two other Facebook pages that leaked general secondary exams, the ministry said.

The prosecution ordered on Monday the detention of 12 education ministry officials for 15 days pending an investigation into the leak.

The officials ordered to be detained are members of a committee responsible for writing down the exams’ questions, while others are responsible for printing the exam papers, a judicial source told Aswat Masriya.

The officials reportedly denied the accusations levelled against them and said that the students were responsible for leaking the exam.

In addition, a university student was detained on Monday for four days pending investigation on charges of running a Facebook page called “Chao Ming” that leaks high school exam questions.

The ministry of education cancelled on Sunday the religion exam for Thanaweya Amma after it was leaked shortly before it was set to take place.

The exam was accordingly postponed to June 29.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Sherif Ismail made a surprise visit to the Ministry of Education on Tuesday to follow up on the general secondary exams after the leak of the religion exam and news of leaking the Arabic exam as well.

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