Financial Times: Protests against Sisi fueled by allegations of corruption

The Financial Times published a report from Cairo entitled “Protests against Sisi fueled by allegations of corruption”.

The writer says that the center of Cairo witnessed an intensive police presence yesterday after demonstrations in Tahrir Square and in various cities in the country.

The writer says Friday’s demonstrations, though small in number, are a rare challenge against the regime of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, “who rules the country with an iron fist in 2014”.

The author says the demonstration has been banned in Egypt since 2013 after Sisi, then defense minister, ousted President Mohamed Morsi in a “popularly backed coup”.

Since he was elected president in 2014, she says, the Sisi regime has cracked down on the opposition, in which thousands have been arrested.

The report said the official media indicated that the banned Muslim Brotherhood was behind the demonstrations, accusing it of disturbing the country’s security.

The writer says that economic reforms, implemented by the government of Sisi under the terms of a loan from the International Monetary Fund, gave Sisi a lot of international praise, but the high inflation rates accompanied by austerity measures significantly affected the poor and the middle class.

Recent government statistics show that one-third of Egyptians live below the poverty line, adding to that number 4 million from 2014 to 2018.