Although the protests yesterday were called over President Sisi giving his Saudi backers two islands as presents, the real reasons are far deeper. Sisi’s Egypt faces a human rights crisis unprecedented in the country’s history.
Hundreds of activists, lawyers and journalists have been arrested in the last few days while the President continues to consolidate his power still farther having turned the Egyptian parliament into little more than a rubber stamp and with the judges who have survived political purges now falling over themselves to implement Sisi’s decrees and those journalists who are not in prison all too eager not to report anything than might upset government officials and going out of their way to denounce “subversive elements” – formerly known as human rights activists.
Meanwhile dozens of LGBT people continue to be arrested, corruption is endemic, government and police accountability virtually non-existent and not a street in Egypt free from the fear of forced disappearances, arrest and torture.
ArabSpring.net 