Why does President Abdel Fattah el Sisi always look so smug? The answer is simple: because he is screwing his nation well and good! You can see why the Sudanese are so careful not to blink, despite having deposed President Omar al Bashir. I can still hear the cries of the jubilation in Cairo when President Mubarak was ousted. Well, that revolution was hijacked by el Sisi and he makes Mubarak look like mild by comparison.
Things started to look shaky when Morsi won the 2012 election. His years as a fundamentalist MP between 2000 and 2005 did not bode well for the future of Egypt. Morsi had won with 51.7% of the vote against Ahmed Shafiq’s 48.3. Shafiq was the last prime minister under Hosni Mubarak and the turnout of the run-off elections was a mere 51%: this was hardly a ringing endorsement of the Brotherhood. Morsi appointed el Sisi Minister of defence and it was downhill form then on.
Sisi's dismal human rights record
Sisi led a coup against Morsi in July 2013 and appointed Adly Mansour as interim president. A crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as liberal elements ensued. A couple of months later, police carried out the Rabaa Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. The murder did not stop with Egyptians. In 2016, Giulio Regeni, an Italian PhD student from Cambridge University was abducted by Egyptian security forces and tortured to death. Since 2014, el Sisi has been winning dubious elections; and the human rights abuses continue to this day.
From one power grab to another
The culmination of el Sisi's oppression came last week with a so called referendum, which he claimed to have won. The referendum was a sham by any standard, but it gives him sweeping new powers. Despite this, the first thing he did was call a state of emergency. Egypt is well and truly stuffed, while the west turns a blind eye in the naive belief that he is keeping extremism at bay. They don't seem to notice his form of extremism. Is it any wonder that el Sisi keeps on smiling?
UN-aligned will call leaders to account
Despots need to be shown up for what they are. UN-aligned, an organisation that will be launched next month, will not stop naming and shaming these abusers of power. See what else UN-aligned is up to: UN-aligned.org We need members so that our voice can get louder and louder. Help us make the world a better place...
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