Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Pic: Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/Flickr)
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Egypt last week—and none of them were arrested.
In the brutal atmosphere since Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power two years ago, this is a victory.
The protests are another sign of the growth of resistance, and the fragility of the government.
The focus was el-Sisi’s decision to hand over two disputed Red Sea islands to ally Saudi Arabia.But there are also wider issues.
One young protester said, “Our message today is that we are still alive. No matter what happened over the past two years, we are still able to regroup and challenge injustice.
“We are back on the scene and the state should know that we are not going to simply let them do whatever they want”.
Meanwhile the Italian ambassador to Egypt has been recalled to Rome.
This follows the failure of a summit between Italian and Egyptian teams investigating the murder of Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni in Cairo earlier this year. The British government has done virtually nothing to pressure Egypt over the case.
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