Nationwide crackdown: over 2,000 Egyptians arrested in anti-Sisi protests

More than 2,000 Egyptians have been arrested by security forces following protests demanding that the coup president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi resigns, according to the Cairo-based Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights. [1]

Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in a rare show of public disapproval towards the coup president. The protests, mostly led by young people, are reported to have taken place in at least eight cities, with Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez heading the largest crowds. [2]

Figures released on Friday show that 2,075 people have now been picked up across the country as the authorities tighten security, disrupt access to internet and arrest scores of protesters amid calls for a “million-man march”. [3]

In order to prevent anti-#sisi protests, @AlsisiOfficial essentially turned large parts of Cairo into huge barracks.

Other areas became ghost towns, closed off to the public.#ارحل_ياسيسي #السيسى #جمعة_الخلاص #Tahrir

pic.twitter.com/H3XaCATlW6

— Jamal Elshayyal جمال الدين الشيال (@JamalsNews) September 27, 2019

The majority of those arrested are said to be under the age of 25 and according to the Belady Centre for Rights and Freedoms, at least 81 of those arrested are under the age of 18.

According to eyewitness testimony and several media reports, security forces in Egypt have aggressively clashed with protesters, firing tear gas and live rounds in an attempt to disperse the large crowds. [4] The rare show of dissent against the coup president is significant, since the Sisi regime has cracked down on dissent, jailing thousands and banning protests across the country.

Some of the first video of anti-@AlsisiOfficial demonstrations.

Protesters in the city of Qina in upper #Egypt

Anti- #sisi chants ring out.#جمعة_الخلاص #جمعة_الغضب #ارحل_ياسيسي #انت_انتهيت_يا_سيسي #Tahrir

pic.twitter.com/PCQOhih4EM

— Jamal Elshayyal جمال الدين الشيال (@JamalsNews) September 27, 2019

Footage posted online show demonstrators chanting “the people demand the fall of the regime”, “Rise up, fear not, Sisi must go” and “leave Sisi.” These slogans echo the chants that were called in the exact same place that took down longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak more than eight years ago.

The coup president is responsible for massacres through his illegal coup and his military war waged fully on the Egyptian populace. Sisi’s forces bloodily purged the two squares, Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda, where thousands of people were massacred and their corpses burnt.

Tens of thousands of innocent protestors had gathered in the two squares supporting their first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, knowing it would be overlooked by the scorching anti-Islamic sentiment conjured throughout Morsi’s short term in office. The massacre in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square was the bloodiest mass killing of unarmed civilians in Egypt’s recent history, and indeed the world.

According to the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, Sisi’s forces “carried out one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.” [5]

Members of the Egyptian army, loyal to the illegal coup ringleader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, are also responsible for exterminating unarmed civilians in Sinai. In April 2017, Amnesty International documented several of the Egyptian army’s extra-judicial field executions in North Sinai. [6] These documented executions are thought to be only a glimpse into the bleak collection of criminality with impunity by soldiers of this ruthless regime, under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’. [7]

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