Egypt’s ‘national dialogue’ is no dialogue at all as repression continues

They were like scenes from a movie: one man had security forces raid his house at night, mess up the contents, assault him and take him blindfolded to an unknown location; another was stopped in his car by security forces in civilian clothes, who took him away forcibly to an unknown place. This was no movie, though; it was the reality on the ground in Egypt when, a few days ago, political cartoonist Ashraf Omar and opposition figure Yahya Abdul Hadi were arrested and held in pretrial detention on politicised charges.

Others have faced similar ordeals. Former MBC journalist Khaled Mamdouh, for example, was arrested in front of his house in Al-Mokattam neighbourhood, Cairo, at dawn on Tuesday, 16 July, and forcibly disappeared for several days. When he reappeared, he was before the Supreme State Security Prosecution as one of the defendants in case No. 1282 of 2024, according to the NGO Foundation for Freedom of Thought and Expression.

Journalist at Al-Youm newspaper Ramadan Gweida Shehata was arrested in early May and disappeared for about 40 days, before he was brought before the prosecution on 10 June. He was sent to prison and he was transferred to Wadi Al-Natroun Prison in the north of Egypt.

The common denominators in all the above cases include enforced disappearances for days or weeks; and facing charges such as joining a terrorist group, financing a terrorist group, publishing and spreading false news and statements, and misusing social media sites. These are the usual charges used against regime opponents in Egypt.

The republic is ranked at 170 out of 180 countries in the global classification of the Press Freedom Index for the year 2024, issued by Reporters Without Borders.

The latest arrests of politicians and journalists coincide with the so-called National Dialogue sessions.

Over the past few weeks, these sessions have discussed the issue of pretrial detention, and it’s almost time for the final recommendations to be presented to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, along with lists of names of detainees, for consideration.

Omar never thought that his satirical cartoons about the country’s debt, electricity power cuts and the sale of state assets, published on Al-Manassa website, would turn his life upside down as a prisoner in Tenth of Ramadan Prison, pending case. No. 1968 of 2024 of the Supreme State Security Prosecution. He may have been waiting for a political breakthrough to come from the National Dialogue, but the authority’s messages were harsh towards the young cartoonist: he was beaten, tortured and threatened with electric shocks, according to a Facebook post by his wife, Nada Mugheeth.

Well-known journalist Anwar Al-Hawari, former editor-in-chief of Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, said on Facebook after a phone call with one of the lawyers which confirmed Omar’s torture in prison, “Hell is when someone has a different opinion in a repressive country with such cruelty.”

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Cruelty has other faces in Egypt as expressed by the head of the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy. In his speech before the National Dialogue session on pretrial detention last month, he called for the protection of families who lose their breadwinners. He cited the case of journalist Yasser Abu El-Ela, who was imprisoned, along with his wife and her sister, in Case No. 2369 of 2024, and their children were left with no one to look after them. He added that the spirit of the law requires the release of one of them to look after their families.

Last week, eleven human rights organisations condemned the ongoing security operations targeting Egyptian journalists and leading to their enforced disappearance. They said that the prosecution of Egyptian journalists makes a mockery of claims that Egypt is going through a stage of political openness.

Sessions of the “National Dialogue: The Path to the New Republic” are being held for the third year in a row, with the participation of the Civil Democratic Movement, whose founder and former spokesman was arrested.

Critics describe it as an authoritarian dialogue under the slogan “I will talk to you and then arrest you”.

Abdul Hadi spent four years in prison after being convicted of spreading false news and statements within and outside Egypt, before he was released under a presidential pardon in June 2022. He is now back in prison, pending case No. 3916 of the year 2024 State Security, on charges of joining a terrorist group, committing a terrorist financing crime, incitement to commit a terrorist crime, misuse of social media, and spreading rumours and false news, according to his lawyer, Khaled Ali.

The Civil Democratic Movement, which includes liberal and leftist opposition parties, calls the imprisonment of its founder “state intimidation”. Officials expressed their deep frustration at the way 70-year-old Abdul Hadi was arrested.

Since Al-Sisi’s call in April 2022 for the first National Dialogue of its kind, arrests of opponents from Islamic, liberal and leftist movements have not stopped, despite successive decisions to pardon some of those imprisoned in cases of freedom of expression.

Journalist Amr El-Sharqawi explains this contradiction by saying that the government system is primarily security-based, and the opinion of any National Security officer takes precedence over that of politicians. The issue of the National Dialogue does not concern the security agencies, so when journalists or prominent figures from the opposition are arrested, the regime seems isolated. Politicians may not hear the news of the arrest of prominent figures except from the media. As for those arranging the arrest, it is the security body that runs the political scene in the country.

The person in charge of the security file at an Egyptian daily newspaper, who asked to remain anonymous, believes that it is likely that Abdul Hadi, a former army officer, was arrested because of his post on Facebook, in which he asked how long the army will stay silent. “Enough is enough,” he wrote. “Most Egyptians are in distress. Failure surrounds everything. Scandals keep unfolding one after the other, tinged with corruption, and everyone is talking about them. The ruler is tampering with everything and does not care about anyone. The opposition is nothing but loud voices that cannot change anything. This regime will not fall except by force, and force is only possessed by the army. Isn’t there anyone in the army who is worried about his country?”

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With the arrest of Abdul Hadi in particular, and before him the former parliamentarian Ahmed Tantawi in May, it seems that the regime in Cairo may be about to raise the level of repression and abuse against the opposition. This sends a message that these arrests will continue to reach others, and that the leaders and figures of the civil democratic movement are not immune from the grip of the regime, which holds dialogue with and arrests people at the same time. Meanwhile, the opposition has no pressure cards, except statements of condemnation, or perhaps freezing participation in the dialogue sessions. It appears as if they are sitting at the dialogue table with a gun pointed at them.

The Egyptian authorities extended the period of pretrial detention for at least 125 people, shortly before holding one of the National Dialogue sessions dedicated to discussing such detention, according to Reuters. The Egyptian Code of Criminal Procedure allows detainees to be kept in pretrial detention for up to two years. The Egyptian authorities, however, have often held people for longer than that.

Since the start of the National Dialogue system, Al-Sisi has released hundreds of political prisoners, but human rights defenders say that the number of people arrested during the same period is at least three times the number of those released.

According to political researcher Mohamed Gomaa, the National Dialogue is nothing but a media and PR exercise to improve the image of the regime, an approach which has been followed since the 2013 military coup. He suggested that the repression will continue as long as Al-Sisi is in power.

The ongoing threats of repression in Egypt are raising doubts about the effectiveness of the National Dialogue. The Egyptian people do not believe the authorities have any real intention to improve the political and economic conditions in the country. The dialogue did not save opposition figures from arrest and torture. This reinforces the claim that this dialogue is useless because it is a dialogue held at gunpoint. And that is no dialogue at all.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.