British Chambers calls for Sisi’s arrest

The UK-based legal body says there is concrete evidence that the Egyptian military junta’s treatment killed Mohamed Morsi and that his death was intentional.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi was elected one year after leading a military coup against his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi. (February 10, 2019)
Reuters

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi was elected one year after leading a military coup against his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi. (February 10, 2019)

The International Justice Chambers (Guernica 37) in the United Kingdom, filing a criminal complaint, has urged the British authorities to issue an arrest warrant for the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi for his role in the death of Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president. 

The call came ahead of Sisi’s expected visit to the UK which, as the chambers said, is responsible for taking action on torture-related crimes no matter where they were committed.

The chambers said there is concrete evidence that the military junta’s treatment killed Morsi and that his death was intentional.

In a statement, it called on London counter-terrorism units to launch a probe into “credible allegations of torture made against the Egyptian government and state organs”. 

Morsi is just one of those whose lives were torn apart by Sisi’s endless crackdown on every aspect of Egyptian life. 

Thousands of opponents, human rights activists, artists, university lecturers across the political spectrum, have been detained, arrested and tortured in Egypt since Sisi came to power in a 2013 military coup, removing the elected government of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi. 

This month, US-Egypt dual citizen Moustafa Kassem, died in the Egyptian prison where had been held since 2013, on what he said were false charges of joining a protest. 

Recently, the aftermath of rare protests against the Sisi regime that took place last September was reported. 

According to the Egyptian centre for Freedoms and Rights, 1,298 people were detained while 1,003 of those were placed under formal arrest

The arbitrary arrests go as far as jailing a women’s rights activist, Amal Fathy, who criticised the government in a video for not doing enough to investigate sexual harassment she faced. 

The waves of arrests, enforced disappearances and torture are legalised by the laws implemented in Sisi-controlled Egyptian parliament. Human Rights Watch says: “[The laws] further undermine the judiciary’s independence, enhance the military’s power to intervene in politics and the public sphere.”

Egypt’s public sphere is increasingly coming under the control of the Sisi regime. The new NGO law, which was approved by Sisi in last August, prohibits non-governmental organisations from conducting field research or surveys without governmental approval. The law also prohibits participating in any “political” activities which might undermine “national security”. 

The NGO law is not the only one that aims to suppress any possible criticism of the government. 

The Emergency Law, the law on terrorism and the law on cybercrime, which passed in the Egyptian parliament overnight, criminalise almost all forms of expression of opinion. 

Against this background, European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron seem to ignore Sisi’s human rights record, toning down their criticism of Egypt.  

The European Union considers the Sisi regime as vital in the fight against terrorism - even though his policies resulted in a surge of terror attacks- and stemming the flow of African refugees. 

However, green light Europe gives to Sisi to stabilise the troubled Sinai region has so far meant more blood and pain for the Egyptians. 

The Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy estimated that the Egyptian government arrested at least 12,000 Sinai residents between July 2013 and December 2018, accusing them of being Daesh members. 

The Egyptian military, in addition, has forcibly displaced nearly 10,000 North Sinai residents, one-fifth of the entire region’s population, and destroyed thousands of homes since 2014. 

Despite all the well-documented human rights violations, Sisi remains the “favourite dictator” of the US President Donald Trump. 

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