Trump Backs Egypt’s Sisi After Rare Protests Spark Crackdown
The protests, which were eventually broken up by tear gas, took many by surprise, including activists who took part.
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump backed his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, as a “highly respected leader” who “brought order,” dismissing small protests that pointed to simmering economic frustrations.
“Demonstrations? No, everybody has demonstrations,” Trump said during a meeting with El-Sisi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. “Egypt has a great leader, he’s highly respected, he’s brought order. Before he was here, there was very little order, there was chaos. So I’m not worried about that.”
The comments came as a rights group reported sweeping arrests in the aftermath of late Friday’s demonstrations in Cairo and some other Egyptian cities. They were a rare show of discontent in the North African country of 100 million that’s cracked down on political freedoms since the 2013 ousting of an Islamist president and has been enacting unpopular economic reforms.
El-Sisi, who was elected after overthrowing and jailing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi amid mass demonstrations against his one-year rule, blamed the latest protests on Islamists.
“Let me say that you will always find protests like this in our regions, especially with political Islam,” El-Sisi said in New York via a translator. Egyptians reject such political movements, he said.
Stock Slump
Egyptian stocks have slumped since the weekend, seeing their longest losing streak since August 2015. The benchmark EGX30 index closed 4.2% down in Cairo on Tuesday.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world and home to the Suez Canal, has long been seen as key to stability in the broader Middle East. Starting in late 2016, El-Sisi oversaw a wide-ranging economic shakeup, including a steep currency devaluation and subsidy cuts, that helped make Egypt an emerging markets darling for bond investors chasing high yields.
At the same time, the poverty rate has increased, climbing to 32% in 2018 from 28% in 2015.
The recent protests had an unlikely apparent spark: videos posted by a sometime actor and ex-government contractor based in Spain, Mohamed Ali, who’s alleged wide-ranging corruption in construction deals. El-Sisi and the government have dismissed all the accusations. Ali has called for further street action on Friday.
While there’s little indication that protests will snowball, Egyptian authorities seem to be taking few chances. The Egyptian Center for Economic & Social Rights said it had documented at least 516 arrests and detentions in the days since.
NetBlocks, a group advocating Internet freedoms, has said access to Twitter, Facebook Messenger and BBC News have all faced technical restrictions, including slowdowns. BBC Arabic quoted the head of the Supreme Council for Media Regulations, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, as saying some sites may have been blocked due to inaccurate coverage.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Egyptian authorities to release any journalists arrested covering protests and refrain from restricting access to news websites.
The Interior Ministry on Tuesday said six members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood had been killed in a shootout with Egyptian police on the western outskirts of Cairo.
--With assistance from Claudia Maedler.
To contact the reporters on this story: Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net;David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson
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