Abdel Fatah al Sisi celebrates ten years in power. A decade that has plunged Egypt into a deep multidimensional crisis: economic, political and freedom. On July 3, 2013, Al Sisi completed a military coup. who ousted the Islamist party of the Muslim Brotherhood from the government and the first president in the history of Egypt to be democratically elected at the polls, Mohamed Mursi. Al Sisi suspended the Constitution and was established with full powers a year later, ratified through a plebiscite.
Egypt has been in a permanent crisis ever since. The persecution of the Islamists extended to all the democratic opposition and the vestiges of the so-called Arab Spring, the popular revolt that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Any form of dissent was retaliated against, from journalists to lawyers, turning the country into one of the world’s largest prisons for civil liberties and human rights activists.
“Thousands of actual or perceived human rights defenders, journalists, protesters and other critics and dissidents of the government continue to be arbitrarily detained for exercising their human rights,” it said. Elizabeth Rghebi, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. “Over the past 10 years, the Egyptian authorities have continued to crush all forms of peaceful dissent and stifle civic space,” she continues.
The magnitude of the arrests has been on such a scale that there are no updated official figures and it is difficult to know the real number of detainees, many of whom are awaiting trial. In February, the Human Rights Watch organization, together with nine other NGOs, demanded more transparency from the Egyptian authorities regarding the imprisoned population and drew attention to their situation behind bars. “Under the rule of President Al Sisi, the prison population has increased dramatically, as authorities have detained tens of thousands of actual or suspected dissidents since late 2013. The crackdown has led to dangerous overcrowding in detention centers and has further worsened their conditions, already inhumane,” it said in a statement.
“The coup and then Al Sisi asking the people to give him a mandate to get rid of terrorism […] it was the breath of life that this coercive apparatus needed to return and be at the front and center of Egyptian life,” explains the researcher of the Initiative for Freedom to the digital ‘Middle East Eye’ Amr el Afifi.