Police arrest hundreds, watchdog group reports

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities have arrested hundreds of people in their effort to clamp down on a spate of small but exceptionally rare protests across the country, a global watchdog and human rights lawyers report.

Riot police forcibly dispersed the limited demonstrations over economic grievances that erupted across several impoverished, rural villages over the past few weeks, according to a new report from rights group Amnesty International.

The organization said it verified videos showing officers with rifles out in force, in two cases beating unarmed protests with batons and firing birdshot at those running away. Two men were killed in the crackdown, the group said, one hit with birdshot by security forces south of Cairo and another during a police raid in the city of Luxor. Hundreds have landed in jail, according to estimates from multiple lawyers, and remain in custody pending investigations into murky terrorismrelated charges, a common tool used by state prosecutors to silence critics and quash dissent. From interviews with eyewitnesses, activists, family members and lawyers, Amnesty said it had confirmed that 496 people remain in detention.

In an unusual show of defiance, small groups of Egyptians dared to join street demonstrations on the anniversary of shortlived protests against the authoritarian rule of President Abdel Fattah elSissi that flared last year.

“The fact that these protesters took to the streets while knowing the very high risk to their lives and safety they were taking shows how desperate they were to demand their economic and social rights,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s regional research and advocacy director.

In September 2019, Egyptians violated a longstanding protest ban to rally in Cairo and several other cities, heeding calls from former military contractor Mohamed Ali, a selfexiled dissident. In a series of widely watched videos, Ali accused elSissi’s government of wasting money on lavish projects while ordinary Egyptians struggled under harsh austerity measures. To stamp out the demonstrations, the government arrested thousands and planted security forces at intersections.

This year, the turnout was much smaller, confined to poor neighborhoods in villages rather than major streets in the capital. Still, the government response was swift and decisive.

Khaled Ali, a wellknown Egyptian human rights lawyer, told the Associated Press that he documented 800 arrests following protests in the suburb of Giza, the northern city of Alexandria, and towns in southern Egypt, including Luxor and Aswan. He said police used electric shocks when interrogating one of his clients who was picked up in the northeastern city of Suez.

A lawyer at the Egyptian Front for Human Rights said he represents 50 defendants across five different provinces caught in the most recent crackdown, but knows of a total of 1,200 people detained last month from records shared among lawyers.

“The authorities are under pressure. They can’t let demonstrations happen without arrests,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

In 2013, elSissi led the military backed ouster of the country’s first democratically elected but divisive Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, amid mass protests against his brief rule. In the years since, the government has ratcheted up its crackdown, targeting not only Islamist political opponents but also secular prodemocracy activists, journalists and online critics.

A government media officer did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations.