Large crowds gathered in Central Cairo and other Egyptian cities on Friday night to protest against Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Protesters shouted “Leave Sisi,” and called for the “fall of the regime.”
Security forces dispersed the protesters with tear gas, and according to AFP news agency at least 74 people have been arrested. Smaller protests broke out Saturday night in the port city of Suez and were quickly broken up with tear gas by the police.
On Sunday, Egypt’s media authority issued a statement warning journalists that they “carefully monitored” the protests. The State Information Service called on reporters to “strictly abide by professional codes of conduct.” Dozens of journalists have been arrested over the past few years, and some news outlets have been banned from reporting in the country.
Egyptian state media provided no coverage of the protests. Since most of the coverage is through videos on social media and anonymous sources, it is hard to know exactly how large the demonstrations were. The state media agency downplayed the coverage of the protests on social media and said, “social media outlets should not be considered as sources of news,” since there are “fake accounts and fabrications.”
Anti-government protests are rare in Egypt. Sisi outlawed demonstrations after he came to power. Since then, protesters have been quickly arrested and given years-long prison sentences.
Friday’s protests came after an exiled Egyptian businessman called for people to take to the streets and demand Sisi’s ouster. Mohamed Ali, a former government contractor, accused Sisi of corruption in a series of videos he posted to Twitter and Facebook. In one video Ali said, “Sisi has taken low-level corruption to a new level. I built five villas for Sisi’s aides and a palace for the president in a military camp in Cairo.”
Sisi arrived in New York on Friday for the UN General Assembly. Protesters were seen outside of his hotel shouting the same chants heard in Cairo.
Sisi came to power in 2013 after a military coup overthrew Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected leader. Morsi was elected in 2012, after massive protests rocked Egypt in 2011 and forced long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak to resign. The Trump administration provided Sisi’s government with $1.2 billion in military aid in 2018.
This image from the news was from 2011, but some things never seem to change… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2c144229331d3f60c80afc627687fd709a6526fa39750b39a52672660231429.jpg
Clearly Sisi has disappointed Western expectations. Every time there are “activists” involved — it is clear who the sponsors are. Such a cheerful propaganda has accompanied this nice work of coordinated multi-city protests. These are aiming at exploiting the wounds of Moslem Brotherhood clash with military.
Somehow I do not think Egypt can be pushed into war with Iran. And without Egypt or Sudan, Saudis and Emirates go not carry much weight.