State Crime, Digital Technology and Civil Resistance: The Mosireen Collective and the Politics of Visibility

Making state crime visible through acts of documentation, resistance and memory has become one of the defining struggles of the digital age. Focusing on Egypt’s Mosireen Collective, this book examines how citizens mobilised digital technologies to expose repression during and after the 2011 revolution. Mosireen’s videos spread rapidly, countering official propaganda while bearing witness to police brutality, torture, mass killings and the wider machinery of state violence, including judicial abuse. Their project, 858: An Archive of Resistance, launched in 2018, endures as one of the most extensive collections of revolutionary footage worldwide. Through Mosireen’s practice, this book shows how civil society responds when states commit crimes with impunity. It demonstrates how digital archives can function as counter-forensic tools: making violence visible, preserving memory and sustaining resistance even in the face of authoritarian resurgence. Drawing on theories of state crime, civil resistance and visual activism, it situates Mosireen within wider debates about power, accountability and the politics of evidence. Bringing together criminology, political analysis and media research, the study reveals how visual culture becomes a site of struggle when law and institutions fail to protect citizens. It offers a powerful contribution to understanding state crime in the digital age and the role of activist media in resisting authoritarian violence. This book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, political science and media and cultural studies. It will also be of interest to human rights practitioners, NGOs, civil society organisations, archivists and activists documenting state violence and sustaining resistance.