Calls for UK to protect protesters in Egypt 

The British government and the international community must protect demonstrators and call for the right of freedom of expression and assembly in Egypt, the head of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council said in a statement today.

Dr Maha Azzam said: “Egyptians have taken the first steps to breaking the barrier of fear,” in reference to the thousands who have broken newly instated laws banning public assembly in order to protest against government corruption and call for President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi to step down.

“The brutal regime of General Sisi is doing its utmost to ensure that it instils fear and terror so that Egyptians do not dare protest against him,” she continued.

The call comes as Egyptian contractor turned whistleblower Mohamed Ali has advocated for a million-man march and for Egyptians to fill the streets and squares of the country tomorrow and demand the president stand down.

During his six-year reign Al-Sisi has committed numerous human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, massacres, enforced disappearances, corruption, torture, rape and detained around 60,000 political prisoners.

According to the Cairo-based NGO the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights 1,909 people have been arrested since the outbreak of protests on 20 September.

READ: Sisi’s son moves to thwart Egypt protests

Najia Bounaim, the North Africa Campaigns Director at Amnesty International, said: “The government of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is clearly shaken to its core by the outbreak of protests and has launched a full-throttle clampdown to crush demonstrations and intimidate activists, journalists and others into silence.”

“The world must not stand silently by as President Al-Sisi tramples all over Egyptians’ rights to peaceful protest and freedom of expression,” she continued, adding: “Instead of escalating this repressive backlash, the Egyptian authorities must immediately release all those detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly and allow further protests on Friday to go ahead.”