CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi on Friday dismissed a call for a second weekend of protests as “no reason for concern”, with hundreds already arrested in an intensifying crackdown on a rare show of discontent on the streets.
Last week’s open defiance of President Sisi — triggered by viral videos from exiled Egyptian businessman Mohamed Aly — has surprised observers in a country where opposition of all stripes has been severely curtailed.
Construction magnate Aly has called for a “million-man march” to take place on Friday and a “people’s revolution” to unseat the uncompromising head of state.
But after he arrived home from the UN General Assembly in New York, Sisi on Friday insisted there was no cause for alarm.
“There are no reasons for concern. Egypt is a strong country thanks to Egyptians,” he told reporters with a smile.
“The case does not deserve all” this attention, Sisi said. “It is an attempt to create an image that is absolutely not real.”
Road blocks prevented traffic from entering Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday morning, AFP journalists said, although it was still possible to move into the area on foot.
Aly accuses Sisi of building lavish palaces while taxpayers grapple with the impact of austerity under an IMF loan programme totalling $12 billion.
In recent days, security has been visibly stepped up, especially in Tahrir Square — the epicentre of the 2011 popular revolt.
That iconic location was key to last week’s demonstrations, which broke out after a football match with protesters chanting “leave, Sisi!” and accusing him of heading a “military regime”.
Alongside beefing up their presence on the streets, the security forces have also detained people they suspect of being key influencers of unrest — journalists, human rights activists and lawyers.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that nearly 2,000 people had been arrested over the past week, in what could be the biggest crackdown since 2013.
“Lawyers for detainees have posted on their social media pages several accounts of security forces arbitrarily arresting many people merely for being in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ or possessing critical content on their phones,” the rights group said.
The attorney general’s office said “not more than 1,000 protesters” had been questioned by prosecutors.
It said prosecutors had orders to “inspect the social media accounts and pages of those detained’’.
Analysts said they expected any further protests to meet a tough response as Sisi seeks to preserve his security credentials.
“Sisi has made it clear he intends to stay in power for quite some time — and protests will not change that calculus for him,” said H A Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The president “appears... convinced that any protests that go beyond a certain point would be destructive not only to his presidency, but the state more generally,” he said. — AFP
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