Egypt journalist attacked by anti-Sisi protesters in Washington streets

Talk show host Youssef al-Hosiny was allegedly slapped on the back of his neck – an extremely insulting form of assault in Egypt – in the streets of the US capital by protesters on Monday.

The video, which has since gone viral, also shows police arresting two suspected attackers moments after Hosiny was assaulted.

US President Donald Trump set human rights scandals aside to welcome Sisi to the White House on Monday, the first such visit from an Egyptian president in almost a decade.

Hosiny phoned into a popular late night talk show on Monday evening to comment on the attack.

"The attackers are just like the stupid faction they belong to... they attack people and they run away. If they were real men they would have stood up to me," the pro-Sisi media figure said, referring to members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Hosiny was similarly attacked in the streets of New York in 2015 while covering Sisi's visit to the UN.

Sisi led a military coup in 2013 against Egypt's first freely elected leader – the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammad Morsi – amid mass protests against his presidency.

The overthrow unleashed a deadly crackdown on Islamists. More than 1,000 peaceful protesters were killed in a single day when police dispersed a Cairo sit-in demanding Morsi's reinstatement.

Egyptian courts have since sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death, including Morsi and other senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

On Monday, protesters gathered outside the White House to chant slogans against the military coup and held up pictures of the Rabaa massacre and Morsi.

Demonstrators told The New Arab that they would deliver a statement to Trump administration officials, condemning the meeting and "exposes the crimes the Sisi regime has committed against the Egyptian people".