What is "baltagiya"

Baltagiya or Baltajiya in Arabic also Baltaga or Baltaja is an Egyptian word that originally means " hatchet men" but it generally means "goons" or " thugs" or " gangs," who are often hired to attack regime targets. Nonpolitical baltagiya gangs appeared in Egypt in the 1980s; in the 1990s the Egyptian police decided to hire them, "outsourcing coercion to these baltagiya, paying them well and training them to use sexualized brutality (from groping to rape) in order to punish and deter female protesters and male detainees, alike". They gained international media attention when spotted in the fighting in Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. In the Port Said Stadium disaster on 1 February 2012, eyewitnesses accused the police of allowing baltagiya in plain clothes into the stadium with weapons and then not intervening to stop the violence.