An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced Hisham Kassem, leader of the liberal opposition, to six months in prison, effectively preventing him from participating in the presidential campaign scheduled for the spring.
The day before, Ahmed al-Tantawi, who is the only candidate already in the campaign, revealed that his phone had been tapped since September 2021, after the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto established the presence of spyware there. .
Hisham Kassem was sentenced to “three months firm and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (around 600 euros)” for “defamation” against a former minister and “three months firm for contempt of agents” in the context of the first case. reports on X (ex Twitter) Gameela Ismaïl, one of the executives of the Free Movement, the opposition coalition led by Mr. Kassem.
A call will take place on October 7, says Nasser Amin, the lawyer of this figure of the opposition and the defense of human rights in Egypt, on Facebook.
Amnesty International denounces an “uninterrupted campaign by the Egyptian authorities to silence peaceful criticism and punish opponents”.
Hisham Kassem, 64, has been detained since August 20 and was on hunger strike until September 12 to denounce his incarceration.
Egypt, 135th country out of 140 in the World Justice Project’s rule of law rankings, has thousands of political prisoners.
As the presidential election approaches, in which Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, in power since he deposed the Islamist Mohamed Morsi in 2013, intends to run even if he has not yet officially announced it, according to reports. observers.
The regime has launched a major “national dialogue” intended to give voice to an opposition that has been muzzled and reduced to nothing by arrests for a decade. He also relaunched his presidential pardons committee. Several opposition figures have been released from prison in recent months.
But, note the NGOs, if the presidential pardons committee released a thousand prisoners of conscience, “three times more were arrested” at the same time.
For Gameela Ismaïl, “Hicham Kassem had been bothering the regime for a long time because he denounced in particular the role of the army in the Egyptian economy”, which had been in free fall for months.
The Free Movement says it reserves the right to “escalation” and its executives raise the possibility of freezing their activities and boycotting the presidential election or the national dialogue.
Two of its executives recently said they were “personally in favor” of the candidacy of former chief of staff Mahmoud Higazi, whose daughter married Mr. Sissi’s son, provoking heated debates in Egypt.
As for Mr. Tantawi, he says he is “determined” to continue his campaign despite the fact that “in recent days the pace and severity of illegal and immoral actions undertaken by the security forces against (his) campaign have intensified.” .
“At least 35 members of his campaign were arrested in less than three weeks in 13 different provinces,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) reported Friday.
This NGO, the largest human rights NGO in Egypt, withdrew from the national dialogue on Wednesday to protest “the arrest of one of the participants in the dialogue”, Mohammed Zahran, founder of the Independent National Union of Egyptian Teachers.
The latter was released on Saturday evening, announced the EIPR.
The Democratic Civil Movement, a coalition bringing together the Free Movement and other opposition parties, particularly on the left, has been warning for days against an “explosion” in the most populous Arab country, the second state in the world with the most great risk of defaulting on its debt.
“Egypt will not tolerate a third term,” he warned. Delaying “change” will bring the country “to the brink of explosion.”
On Saturday, Mr. Sissi, visiting a rural province south of Cairo, announced exceptional bonuses for civil servants and low wages, as well as tax exemptions as inflation reached its highest level in August history with almost 40%.
Washington recently approved most of its military aid to Egypt, “creating an artificial choice between national security and human rights”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged on Saturday.
Washington released $1.215 billion and withheld an additional $85 million conditional on the release of political prisoners.
16/09/2023 21:35:59 – Cairo (AFP) – ©2023 AFP
