As Mohammed al-Sharqawi left his rooftop home in central Cairo to meet a friend last Saturday afternoon, he latched the door as usual. But when he returned three hours later the door was no longer properly locked and his laptop was missing.

Nothing else was taken. He concluded that state security personnel had taken the thing dearest to all internet bloggers. If so, they succeeded in confiscating downloaded videos of police torture contained on the laptop, which Mr Sharqawi says he intended to put on his blog.