When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010, it first triggered a wave of revolts, then hopes of a historic liberalization in Arab countries. But the doors of democracy, barely half-opened, have been shut ever since.
Tag: sisi
Nine years after the Jan. 25 popular revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, so much of the hopes failed to materialize. But not everything.
The editor of Mada Masr, a Worldcrunch partner publication based in Cairo, explains how they wound up making news itself last month.
Alaa was taken away by the Egyptian state. Mohamed al-Baqer, a human rights lawyer, was also detained when he showed up to attend Alaa’s interrogation.
CAIRO — Something big — that we do not yet fully understand — is happening in Egypt’s halls of power. Maybe we know some of it, and will get to know more with time. Perhaps we won’t learn more at any time in the near future. What we do know is that the build-up to […]
Proposed changes to the Constitution could reshape the role of the Armed Forces, even giving them authority to annul unfavorable election results, experts warn.
CAIRO — The Democratic Party chalked up victories across the United States in the midterm elections on November 6, gaining control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. And even if the Republicans still hold control of the Senate, the outcome of the midterms breaks up the Republican monopoly in […]
CAIRO — In the year of Mohamed Salah’s rise to fame as one of the world’s best soccer players, his every move and success has been well documented across the globe, no more so than in his native Egypt. Here, the cult of personality around him runs much deeper, hitting at the heart of struggles […]
Set for a second term, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has evolved in tone and substance over the past four years: from soft-spoken insider to all-powerful leader.
CAIRO — Over the course of the past two months, since Ghad Party head Moussa Mostafa Moussa decided to run for president, the party and its relatively unknown candidate have found themselves suddenly wading into uncharted waters. Before he submitted his papers to the National Elections Authority on January 29, only minutes ahead of the […]
CAIRO — “Angry” was the way many described President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s improvised speech during the inauguration ceremony of the Zohr natural gas field on January 31. The president declared that the only way Egypt’s national security could be compromised was over his “dead body” and the “dead body of the military.” But with whom […]
There is one land crossing out of Gaza, Rafah on Egypt’s border, and it is usually shut, confounding the life and travel plans of thousands of Palestinians.
CAIRO — Just north of the Egyptian capital, a short ferryboat ride will take you to the southern tip of the Nile island of Warraq. It has patches of agricultural land and scattered houses and deeper in, the island resembles a typical Cairo neighborhood with tightly-stacked buildings and narrow streets packed with motorcycles and tuk-tuks. […]
-Essay- CAIRO — I did not know Giulio Regeni, but I could have. The earnest, affable face staring out of his photographs is reminiscent of any number of the trickle of European researchers and activists who pass through Cairo and want to meet in downtown dive bars to talk about the condition of the workers […]
Though both parties deny it, there have been rumors and a number of signs pointing to a possible reconciliation between the Egyptian government and the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
New Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi claims to oppose sexual violence from security forces and others, but there is bloodcurdling evidence that it is still used to silence critics.
SILAH — The men entered by the window of Silah’s police station. There were maybe 60 of them, their unmasked faces easy to recognize since they all live in the small town. “Average citizens, aged between 18 and 45,” one policeman says. That mid-August day, these “average citizens” set about sacking the station, taking radio […]