The arrest of several activists and journalists raised fears of a return to a police state in Egypt. Mohammed Abu Daraa, the Sinai correspondent of the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, was arrested and to be referred to military court on charges of reporting false news about operations of the armed forces.

Activist Haitham Mohammadayn, a leader in the Revolutionary Socialists movement, was also arrested and interrogated on charges that became the subject of ridicule among activists, such as "enabling a certain social class to control the entire society." He was later released.

Moreover, a lawyer known for his insolence appeared on one of the TV channels to insult January 25 revolutionaries and accuse them of treason. A media campaign was launched to discredit many human right activists and revolutionaries who emerged after the January 25 Revolution. News circulated that an investigation was opened by the prosecutor general’s office to interrogate them on charges of espionage with the United States and receiving illegal funding.

These charges were based on a translated document from WikiLeaks. However, the prosecutor general’s office denied that such investigations are taking place, as it turned out that the translation widely published and shared on social media was fake since the original WikiLeaks English document only mentioned that some of the concerned activists merely had dinner with the US ambassador in Cairo.