Al-Sisi, worse than Mubarak

For the first time in Egypt’s history, the security forces have forcibly shut down an entire newsroom, arresting all six reporters who are part of the Matsadaash platform, which specialises in investigative journalism and fact-checking. Last Monday and Tuesday, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Abdallah Qadry, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Mahmoud and Mohamed Adel were detained by police who raided their homes, seizing mobile phones and laptops. To date, the reasons for this are unknown, nor is it known where they are being held. Informal reports suggest that Matsadaash was accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, a very common charge used by the regime – usually without any evidence – to justify repression.

This is the harshest attack ever launched on press freedom by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime, made all the more serious by the silence of Europe, Cairo’s main economic partner. Last January, to justify the disbursement of one billion euros to Egypt in macro-financial assistance, the European Commission had stated that Egypt “had taken credible and concrete measures” on human rights and democracy. This positive assessment was reiterated in July. “A completely false assessment, which has encouraged impunity, allowing the Egyptian authorities to exercise even greater repression,” Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, tells Il Foglio. Together with 80 other NGOs, he has signed an appeal calling for the journalists’ release. “The European Parliament and the Commission must take a stand immediately, as this is a clear breach of the conditions on which the one-billion macro-financial assistance was conditional.” Today, Egypt is the country with the highest number of imprisoned journalists – 19 in total – and according to Kaldas, “there is no doubt that the repression under al-Sisi’s regime has surpassed that seen during the Hosni Mubarak years”. “But what al-Sisi fails to understand is that arresting journalists and closing down newsrooms will not stop Egyptians from continuing to see the reality of the situation and to detest him.”