Since Sissi is in power, Egypt military has been continuing to back the government despite the fact that there has been a growing unrest amongst part of population. Sissi has been using tight fist to suppress such unrest however Covid – 19 has provided and unpresented opportunity to Sissi.
Officials have authorized punishments including prison terms for anyone contradicting official accounts about the pandemic. This has given the Sissi administration to isolate the political prisoners more than ever.
On 8th of March, President Sissi signed the amendments to nation’s emergency law. However some of these laws open a wide door to more abuses of rights and freedoms. There are 18 amendments are in place concerning the Covid-19. However only small of number of amendments are related to human health i.e. related to closing schools, universities, delaying the tax collections, postponing utility payments. Most are giving Sissi administration to ban or limit private gathering or allowing Sissi to control, sell, but, export any goods or services and its prices.
It is without any doubt that it opened an unreformed emergency law which gives Sissi the opportunity to tighten his grip in Egypt. Resorting to ‘national security and public order’ as a justification reflects the security mentality that governs Sissi’s Egypt. Shortly, it construes as window into how authoritarian power that has been consolidated for years can play out and be leveraged amid a moment of global emergency.
This is not the first time Sissi has done it. Since April 2017, Egypt has been under a state of emergency. The underlying reasons were introduced as drug trafficking and combat terrorism. But all knows that these are the pretexts to strengthen Sissi’s power on the country. Today, Sissi use pandemic to justify some of these measurements.
During March, government forces westerns journalist to leave Egypt after she published figures from experts that suggested that the infected people with Covid-19 could be at least 10 times more than declared by government. At this moment, Egypt has near to 11 000 injected people with 571 people death (as of 15 May 2020).
The attempts to link the pandemic to the Brotherhood could lead to more arrests and abuses against anyone suspected of opposing the regime. The pandemic is also being used to silence political prisoners. Egypt has denied the inmates visits from families and lawyers. Thus, emphasizes the intension to expand its control primarily under the pretext of covid-19 is the ability of political prisoners to contact the outside world. Basically, the inmates are cut off from the world.
It is a great concern to international arena that government might use this opportunity to crack down on the few remaining civil society groups or online media. It is a great possibility to see Egypt restricting those civil groups.
However, this proves Geopolitic Compass prediction that Egypt will meet with unrest before the decade ends since public has not surrounded to government pressure, yet and Sissi is far away from being a president to Egypt but to a group of elites.
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