Sisi’s War on Reporters
These are grim times in Egypt. The country is still absorbing the news of the downing of the Russian airliner that killed 224 people in October. But to many, the tears of 23-year- old Esraa el-Taweel captured the grinding misery of life under the military-backed regime of President Abdel Fattah el- Sisi.
Ms. Taweel, a photojournalist and student, was shot in the back in 2014 when the police dispersed a protest to mark the third anniversary of the January 25 revolution, which she was photographing. Still disabled, she uses a crutch to get around.
On June 1, after dining out with friends, she was bundled into a van and taken to a national security facility. Blindfolded and interrogated without a lawyer, she was held incommunicado. Repeated detention orders have now kept her in jail for more than 170 days — on charges that she belongs to an illegal organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and spread “false information.” She has denied both charges.
The regime has thrown thousands of people into jail. And it knows that the mere suggestion that someone belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood means a loss of public sympathy. But Ms. Taweel’s ordeal is different.
On November 2, at a pretrial hearing, Ms. Taweel begged the court to allow her to receive medical attention and let her go home. The judge extended her detention for 45 days. Ms. Taweel broke down in court. Pictures of her sobbing were shared on social media, and prominent activists and politicians called for an end to her ordeal.
On November 9, Egypt’s Homeland Security agency released what it claimed was her confession, full of feverish plots, including one to assassinate an unnamed senior official. Her lawyer said the testimonies were fabricated.
While Egypt’s regime is brutal and unjust, its ruthlessness is rewarded by other governments with aid, weapons and business deals. All in the name of stability.
Mr. Sisi’s regime wages war not just on political opponents but against atheists, gay men, belly dancers, even pop stars. Ms. Taweel is but one of many young people dragged into jail by a regime tenacious in its cruelty.
Sometimes, it feels as though nothing changes; the only details I have to update are the names of the new detainees.
The hardest part is when one of the new names is someone I know — like Mostafa Massouny, a 26-yearold film editor who has been missing for months. His family and friends believe that he is now in the custody of the Interior Ministry.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms has recorded 1,411 cases of forced disappearances this year. In one case, in Alexandria, a groom was arrested at his own wedding. Egypt now holds an estimated 40,000 political prisoners.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sisi was welcomed on state visits to India and Britain. The parliamentary elections, whose first round was in October, were merely a fig leaf to placate global allies with the comfortable lie that Egypt is progressing along the path of democracy.
Unchecked, the regime grows in recklessness. After the Russian airliner crash, the state- owned media slavishly imitated the government’s refusal to accept that the crash was caused by a terrorist bomb. Instead, they accused Egypt’s foreign allies of trying to destroy the country’s economy by scaring away tourists.
Mr. Sisi’s government says that it is investigating the disaster, but do not expect results soon. We were promised an investigation after an Egyptian military airstrike in September mistakenly hit a picnic of Mexican tourists and their guides in the Western Desert, killing a dozen people. But prosecutors ordered a media embargo, and nothing more has emerged.
With a regime as paranoid and brittle as this, it is not hard to anticipate its actions. A recent Sunday was typical: An investigative journalist was detained and interrogated by military prosecutors, a businessman and his son were arrested, and a TV anchorwoman was suspended from her job.
The investigative journalist, Hossam Bhagat, was released after an international outcry. The businessman and his son, Salah and Tawfik Diab, were released on bail, pending investigation of charges that they possessed unlicensed firearms. The anchorwoman, Azza el-Henawy, dared to suggest on her show that Mr. Sisi should be held accountable for the government’s failure to help Egyptians affected by recent flooding in the Alexandria area. This is the third time she has been suspended by the state- owned channel she works for: She was taken off the air for criticizing corruption under the Mubarak regime and was pulled from her show again in 2013, after she questioned the conduct of a minister in Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood administration.
According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, 62 media workers are in Mr. Sisi’s jails. Try as it might to silence its critics, the regime must know that jailing journalists can muzzle criticism only for a time. Such action only amplifies its desperation and fragility.