Cairo -

In June 1981, Egypt witnessed sectarian strife, which began with a quarrel between two people in the Al-Zawiya Al-Hamra neighborhood in the capital Cairo and turned into bloody and unfortunate events, facts that the late President Anwar Sadat - months later - took as a pretext for the famous September arrests, but later testimonies People close to him considered that the arrests were mainly aimed at stabilizing the home front in order to complete Israel's withdrawal from Sinai.

In August 1981, Sadat visited Washington, and if he faced a storm of questions from the American press about internal problems in Egypt, including sectarian strife, and in the meantime, Coptic associations in the United States published an advertisement in famous newspapers there, talking about what they described as harassment faced by the Copts. In Egypt, these associations also organized demonstrations against Sadat as well.

The late writer Muhammad Hassanein Heikal says in his controversial book “Autumn of Anger… The Beginning and the End of the Sadat Era” that Sadat received the Prophet’s Minister of Interior Ismail, and also received the head of the General Intelligence, just as the Minister of Presidential Affairs Mansour Hassan - who is close to Sadat - felt that something was wrong with him. It is being planned, and he feels that Sadat will take violent measures to put an end to the state of rebellion and disobedience that he was feeling, and Mansour tried to meet Sadat, but to no avail.

Thousands of detainees

One week after Sadat's return from Washington, the campaign of arrests began at the dawn of the third of September, and Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper says that the official number of detainees announced by Sadat is 1536, but sources from the testimonies of some detainees - Islamists and leftists - confirmed that the detainees may be detained. They were already several thousand, and the official announced figure may have been the outcome of arrests for the first 3 days only, but the arrest campaigns had already started since April 1981 and continued until the following year.

As for Heikal, who was one of the most prominent Egyptian journalists at the time, and was famous for his anti-Sadat writings and was among the detainees in that wave, the number of detainees is estimated at about 3,000, saying, “There were new names added to the list every minute. Relatively easy religious associations, but the arrests of some politicians, intellectuals, and a number of religious leaders, Muslims and Christians, were planned by paramilitary operations, whether in timing or in some procedures.

Heikal adds that the prison doors were opened to receive the symbols of the religious, political, intellectual and journalistic currents in Egypt, in addition to everyone who opened his mouth even with a word against the Camp David treaty (which Egypt concluded with Israel under the auspices of the United States in 1978), against corruption, or against the exploitation of the sectarian issue in Egypt.

The list of detainees included a long list that included, in addition to Heikal, Salah Issa, Abu Al-Ela Madi, Abdel Moneim Abu Al-Fotouh, Mahmoud Amin Al-Alam, Mustafa Bakri, Dr. Milad Hanna, Shahanda Makled, Nawal Al-Saadawi, Karam Zuhdi, in addition to Pope Shenouda, head of the Coptic Church in Egypt at that time.

Sadat and to his right his deputy, Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded him in the presidency later (communication sites)

The Sadat era is over

According to Al-Ahram newspaper, the Nasserite parliamentary representative and pole, Kamal Ahmed, says that Heikal (who was the most prominent media person close to former President Gamal Abdel Nasser) was surprised by his arrest, and he did not imagine that the late President Sadat would reach the point of disagreement to the stage of arrest, for his desire to suppress opposition voices. The peace agreement was signed to ensure that no problem with Israel would hinder its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.

Kamal Ahmed adds that Heikal assured him inside the prison that the Sadat era is over, and that what he did will destroy him because - from the expert journalist writer's point of view - when the outlets are closed and the language of dialogue becomes paving the way for another language, which is violence, predicting the assassination of Sadat.

Sadat's speech

In his speech before the People’s Assembly on September 5, Sadat declared that these measures are necessary because certain elements threaten the unity and security of the country, and invoked Article 74 of the constitution to justify the arrests, and this article gives the president - in cases of emergency - the power to suspend all constitutional guarantees, and to take He also canceled the decision to appoint Anba Shenouda as Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark.

During the speech, Sadat decided to prohibit the exploitation of religion to achieve political or partisan goals, as he described it, and to prohibit the exploitation of places of worship for this purpose. The licenses granted to issue some newspapers and publications with the reservation of their funds and headquarters. During his speech, Sadat criticized the names of some of those he arrested, especially Pope Shenouda.

Then Sadat held a press conference - in his hometown in the village of Mit Abu al-Koum - where he got excited in front of the questions of foreign journalists, especially when an American station delegate asked him if he had informed US President Ronald Reagan of these arrests during his visit to Washington, Sadat lost his nerve, and said, "If We weren't in a free country so I would have pulled out my pistol and shot you," according to The Autumn of Rage book, in which Haykal chronicles that period.

new revolution

On September 6, the national newspapers issued details of Sadat's speech, describing his decisions as the most important and most dangerous speeches he delivered since taking over the leadership of Egypt, and that he clearly revealed the circumstances surrounding sectarian strife. And in Al-Akhbar newspaper, Musa Sabry, who is close to the authority, justified Sadat's decisions as "to strike sedition."

Salah Issa mentions - in his book "Persons Have Wonder" - that the propaganda campaign accompanying the September arrests was that the detainees were planning to explode sectarian strife, while the motive - according to the other opinion - is to restore stability to the home front so that Israel does not take advantage of the situation and refuses to withdraw from Sinai.

Issa quotes an article he described as "dangerous and famous" by journalist Anis Mansour - the writer most closely attached to Sadat in his last years - that the latter reached the height of his tension and completely lost control of his nerves, so that he himself became the biggest factor of tension that prevailed in Egyptian public life in Those dreary days, the matter turned into something like a personal rivalry between him and his opponents.

generous treatment

Interestingly, Mrs. Jihan Sadat, the wife of the late president, said that she was saddened by the arrest decisions, because they made the detainees heroes, as she described them, and that most of the detainees were from Islamic groups, adding that Sadat assured her that he did so “to protect Egypt, so that Israel would not argue that the people Not with him,” and that he said that when he receives his land on April 25 the following, everyone will be released.

Jihan said - in a television interview with the journalist Ahmed Moussa on his program "On My Responsibility" - that the detainees were treated very generously, and after the assassination of the president, she says that she thought that these Islamic groups would have seized power if Sadat had not arrested them.

had to

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Lah, the former president of Alexandria University, admits that Sadat was affected by his visit to America, and that Israel informed the American president that the Egyptian public opinion was against the peace agreement, and when Sadat returned to Egypt, he told him that he had taken these measures because he had to.

Abdullah confirms - in a television interview - what Jihan Sadat said, and that the president told him that he would release all detainees after the completion of the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai.

Sadat's assassination

On October 6, 1981, Sadat was assassinated during a military parade during the October victory celebrations, among his ministers and army leaders, and the news reached the detainees inside the prisons.

While Heikal - who was opposed to Sadat - considered that "the Egyptian masses felt calmer than they were worried when they heard of Sadat's assassination", the late writer Anis Mansour - who was a supporter of Sadat - considered that "it is among the absurdities of the Egyptians" that they were not satisfied with the assassination of one of their greatest greats, who is Anwar al-Sadat, but they were accused of making him a criminal, he said.

Mansour adds - in an article published by Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper in October 2010 - that Sadat is a hero of war and a champion of peace, "He is a high example of a man who has won his people and dearest soldiers and defeated the parties alone. There are those who do not know, and who do not care to know, and who hate He is dead and alive."