Italian newspaper chooses Egypt’s ex-President Morsi as 'Personality of 2019'

Italy’s largest newspaper has awarded Egypt’s late president, Mohamed Morsi, the “Personality of 2019” title.

On Wednesday, La-Luce put Morsi’s photo on its front page, under which it described him as “the man of the year 2019.”

The newspaper praised Morsi, explaining that he was “able to keep his promise until his death,” citing his final when he said: “If the price of protecting democratic legitimacy is my blood, then I am ready to offer my blood for the sake of salvation and justice in this country [Egypt].”

It accused the Egyptian regime, led by the incumbent president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, of “holding comic trials against Morsi.”

“Despite Egypt’s poor economic conditions and its broken, corrupt national system after the 2011 revolution, Morsi had exerted notable efforts to revive the country from its crisis,” the newspaper pointed out. “He did not arrest any opponents, did not shoot protestors’ crowds, did not suppress demonstrations,” the paper added, referring to Sisi regime’s attacks on opponents and rights activists.

Read: Egyptian National Action Group condemns Egypt involvement in Libya

Morsi became the first democratically elected head of state in Egyptian history by winning the primary post-revolution presidential election in 2012. Since the 2013 military coup, he was detained, and his party labelled a “terrorist organisation”.

In June, he died after collapsing in a court session while he was on trial for “colluding with Hamas.”

Morsi’s death has shone a spotlight on the conditions Egypt’s detainees are held in and the refusal of medial attention, which is a standard punitive measure used by authorities. The United Nations (UN) had said that the prison conditions in Egypt might have directly led to his death and maybe placing the health and lives of thousands of more prisoners at severe risk.

Following his ouster, the Egyptian authorities launched a relentless crackdown on political dissent, killing or imprisoning thousands of Morsi’s supporters and members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.