How Egypt's crackdown on Gaza protests shows the fragility of Sisi's regime

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is cracking down on protestors showing solidarity with Palestine at a time when he is courting the international community for multi-billion funds and attempting to position himself as a peace broker in the Gaza-Israel crisis.

The arrests expose a contradiction between Sisi’s domestic messaging of support for Gaza versus his objectives on the international stage of keeping Israel as an ally to maintain control of the border and play mediator. 

They also illustrate that, even after a decade of unrivalled power, his regime is too fragile to allow any meaningful show of political free expression.

On 1 May, six Egyptians daring to raise a flag in support of Palestine were detained in Alexandria. On 23 April, 16 Egyptians were arrested for participating in a feminist solidarity act outside the UN Women's offices in Cairo. Weeks earlier, meanwhile, 10 activists were arrested following peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrations outside the Cairo Journalists Syndicate.

"Egypt's ruling regime is conscious that any protest, even in support of Palestine, could escalate and threaten its stability"

“The recent crackdown on activists who gathered in front of the regional headquarters of UN Women in Cairo’s Maadi, simply to deliver a letter to demand protection and safety for women in Gaza and Sudan, follows a sadly all too familiar script,” Rasmus Alenius Boserup, Executive director at EuroMed Rights, told The New Arab.

At least 120 activists protesting in support of Palestine have been detained by Egyptian authorities since 7 October, according to a report from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

“It’s part of the ongoing repression campaign which entails an absolute bar on peaceful protests, rights of assembly and freedom of expression,” Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher Mahmoud Shalaby told TNA.

Since Sisi rose to power in 2014, his regime has put as many as 60,000 political activists and human rights defenders behind bars, many without trial. Tens of thousands more have been subject to travel bans, arbitrary arrests or forced into exile.

Egypt's regime still fears dissent

Egypt’s ruling regime is acutely aware that the Gaza crisis has thrust Egypt into the international spotlight and given the country’s leadership a chance to boost its diplomatic standing. It’s also conscious that any protest, even in support of Palestine, could escalate and threaten its stability.

“The escalation of the crisis in Gaza, and Egypt’s role as mediator, has allowed the regime to boost its image and to divert attention from the internal political and human rights crisis,” Boserup said.

Egypt’s position towards Israel and Palestine is ambiguous at best. For the past decade, Egypt has worked closely with Israel on security cooperation.

Today, the regime publicly claims to be a staunch defender of its brothers and sisters in Palestine, but it maintains relations with Israel and is chiefly concerned about the potential influx of Palestinian refugees into the Sinai Peninsula. 

The clampdown on any political movements underlines the regime's need to maintain absolute control over the ongoing narrative.

“Historically speaking, Palestine has been a very mobilising cause for Egyptians,” Maged Mandour, Egyptian political analyst and author of the book ‘Egypt Under Sisi’, told The New Arab.

“Before 2011, it was the birthplace of the movement that would later lead to the Arab Spring. Added to this, the regime's policy in Israel is actually quite shameful. I mean, Egypt has directly participated in the blockades,” he added.

“But also generally speaking, there is a fear that even if it's a small protest, it might snowball into something larger.”

"The escalation of the crisis in Gaza, and Egypt's role as mediator, has allowed the regime to boost its image and to divert attention from the internal political and human rights crisis"

Lack of international pressure on Egypt

The IMF, World Bank, and the EU have all come to Egypt’s economic rescue in the past few months armed with multi-billion-dollar bailout packages. Before the agreements were inked, there was hope that the organisations would pressure Egypt to improve human rights conditions in exchange for much-needed financial aid.

“There was some hope that outside aid would be conditioned on political reform, but that has completely evaporated now,” Mandour said.

“The Gulf states, who are his main backers, don't care about that at all. In terms of the international organisations, either the IMF, the European Union, or the World Bank, there is no significant pressure whatsoever.”

The EU said its $8 billion loan to Egypt would include human rights stipulations. Yet, a closer look at the loan documents reveals a complete lack of human rights demands and shows that the funding is simply contingent on Egypt following the IMF agenda.

“There is no reason for him [Sisi] to change tracks at all,” added Mandour. “There is no incentive, there is no internal pressure for him to do that, there is no external pressure.”

No end to repression

The Gaza crisis has given protestors a reason to take to the streets of Cairo and major Egyptian cities. There is appetite among Egyptians to protest in support of Palestine, but the scale of protests is likely to be limited due to the regime's unwavering crackdown, which isn’t expected to change in the future.

“I'm not sure if there's an appetite for this open confrontation with the regime because there is an awareness that the crackdown will be very severe,” Mandour said. “Maybe there will be other more creative forms of protests.”

Sisi’s regime has hinted that they would be willing to engage with the opposition and revert to a more open society reminiscent of the Mubarak era, yet no progress has been made. 

“We haven’t seen any shift in the government position for human rights,” Shalaby said. “Government efforts to address the human rights crisis, for example, the National Human Rights Strategy, were attempts to whitewash the abuses.”

As well as the National Human Rights Strategy, the Egyptian government promised a voice to the opposition in the National Dialogue Initiative which hinted at a pardon of political prisoners.

“They had the first stage and now that concluded, there is no more talk about the actual release of political prisoners or significant reform and the regime's policy of this endless detention cycle,” Mansour said.

Even if a shift towards more freedom of expression would improve Sisi’s position both domestically and abroad, it is unlikely he would ever change his tactics of the past decade.

“It is difficult to imagine a scenario where the regime ends repression,” Boserup said. “Born out of a bloody coup that killed a thousand protestors a decade ago, Sisi's regime survival strategy has from the outset rested on publicly displayed military - and police repression of dissent.”

Lara Gibson is a Cairo-based journalist closely following Egypt's economic and political developments.

Follow her on Twitter: @lar_gibson