• Egypt.A regime in involution

Several cities in Egypt have witnessed at the last minute this Friday of small protests against Egyptian President Abdelfatah al Sisi, an unusual fact since the quarterback led the coup d'etat that in 2013 evicted Islamist Mohamed Mursi from power and inaugurated a bloody repression Protesters have come to the call launched from Spain by an Egyptian businessman who has been denouncing the alleged corruption of the regime for weeks.

"Al Sisi vete" or "The people want the regime to fall" have been some of the chants that, after a football match that has faced the Cairotas clubs of Zamalek and Ahli , have chanted a few hundred people in Tahrir Square from Cairo, icon of the massive protests that precipitated the sunset of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The scenes have been repeated shortly after in cities like Alexandria, Damietta, Suez, Mansura or Mahala al Kubra , in the north of the country.

The call has left Mohamed Ali , an Egyptian businessman and actor who worked for three years for the army. After a succession of defaults, he left the country; He settled in Barcelona ; and at the beginning of September he began broadcasting videos on YouTube and Facebook in which he has reported that Al Sisi and his comrades of the military establishment allegedly diverted public funds to build presidential palaces and gain weight on the real estate projects of the armed forces, including a luxury hotel in the outskirts of Cairo owned by intelligence.

Al Sisi, who beat the Bulgarian in two orphan rival elections and was underpinned last April by a referendum that allows him to remain in power until 2030 , has so far exercised zero tolerance for dissent. More than 60,000 dissidents have been jailed; hundreds have suffered forced disappearances and the media have been completely gagged. According to the state news agency Mena, Al Sisi has left this Friday for New York to attend the UN General Assembly next week.

"People keep going down to the square. We are surrounded by police and soldiers but, so far, they are treating us well. They tell us to go home and not stop here," said a witness of the WORLD protests in the city of Suez , about 130 kilometers northeast of Cairo. The demonstration continued past midnight. In the capital, the security forces have ended up dispersing the congregates and closed some streets to traffic. "In Tahrir, a young man shouted at the military from a minibus and, suddenly, all the people began to protest. The police did nothing," said a witness on social media.

In the symbolic square that was kilometer zero of the revolts against Mubarak, the police have thrown tear gas to try to disperse those gathered and have arrested several dozen people. In the northern city of Damietta, a group of young people has set fire to an Al Sisi cartel in front of a row of police vans, which have not intervened. So far, the authorities have not reacted to the chain of protests. The demonstrations have not received any attention in the public media.

In a country where the austerity program promoted by Al Sisi wreaks havoc - according to the World Bank, 60% of Egyptians are "poor or vulnerable to be" - the testimony of the Egyptian businessman based in Spain has been during the last weeks followed with enormous interest through social networks.

His messages have fueled the anger of a people whom the president asks to "tighten his belt" while the military elite embarks on a frenzy of real estate projects. Contacted by EL MUNDO, sources close to the contractor have declined to make statements.

For several days, the label "Enough, Al Sisi" has been a trend on Twitter. Ali called on his supporters to demonstrate on Friday in Egypt and urged the president to leave power. His poisoned darts against Al Sisi and his Praetorian guard - "You are thieves and scammers but fake decency" - have been adding accessions between the punished opposition, for which Ali is an unexpected and exotic partner.

Ali, who has followed this succession of small protests from the city, has been posting messages throughout the day. "I am happy. May God help you succeed. Patriots and brave, this is the Egyptian people," he said at the last hour. The businessman has also urged Defense Minister Mohamed Zaki to dismiss Al Sisi. "You see what people are doing. I hope there is no escalation. Please issue the order to arrest Al Sisi. I hope you are on the side of the Egyptian people," he said.

The most populous country in the Arab world has been in a state of emergency since April 2017, following a chain of attacks claimed by the local branch of the self-styled Islamic State against Coptic churches in Alexandria and the Nile Delta. During the presidency of Al Sisi, the vast military deployment has failed to stop the jihadist insurgency that carries out continuous attacks against the security forces in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. A situation that adds an austerity program agreed with the International Monetary Fund that, with the abolition of subsidies, has hit the middle and lower classes and the most brutal repression campaign in decades.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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