Under former President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians used to say outspoken political dissidents would end up going “behind the sun”—a euphemism that meant you would find yourself in the hands of the State Security Services, and may not find your way back again. A related expression often used during that period was “the walls have ears (that have walls that have ears…)”—it’s the English expression in eternal recurrence. Recently, an Arabic professor in Cairo told me he hadn’t heard either one much in the two and a half years since Mubarak’s ouster. Now, we’ll be using them again, he said wryly.

The brutality of the Egyptian military’s crackdown against supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi shocked many in Egypt and abroad. Since the initial violence, the army and police have rounded up many prominent and less prominent Morsi supporters. Their nets have now expanded to include even former members of the Brotherhood who have not been affiliated with the group for some time.

More surprising, particularly to supporters of the military’s actions, are the charges leveled against two prominent activists, Esraa Abdel Fattah and Asmaa Mahfouz, this past week. Abdel-Fattah is a founding member of the April 6 youth movement and both were heavily involved in the January 2011 peaceful uprisings that led to the unseating of Mubarak. On Saturday, both women found themselves under investigation for “spying for foreign bodies,” according to the state-run news outlet, Al Ahram Online.

Islamists and activists are not the only ones under suspicion. Journalists, both foreign and Egyptian, have been targeted by the new military regime. The government has shuttered the offices of Qatar-based Al Jazeera Arabic, and arrested their correspondent, and at least 12 foreign correspondents have been attacked or detained since Morsi’s ouster, according to the New York Times. An Egyptian journalist for state-run al Ahram was shot at a military checkpoint in the Nile Delta last week.

In the current climate, there is no room for dissenting views, even from one of the most historically respected quarters of Egyptian society. On July 22, a group of 75 judges issued a statement condemning the ouster of president Morsi on the grounds that it was “a breach of the constitutional legitimacy” because, they said, Morsi was “the legitimate elected president” and that they as judges had observed the elections and found them to be “fair, free and transparent.” The statement was issued under the auspices of the Independent Judges’ Trend.