Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Mahmoud Hassan
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Is Sisi moving towards reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood?
The Egyptian authorities’ decision to remove 716 people from the terrorist list is surrounded by mystery. The list includes Muslim Brotherhood leaders, businessmen, journalists and human rights activists, and it raises many questions about the significance of the decision and whether it is a prelude to resolving the crisis...
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Cheating is ruining Egypt's education quality indicators
There are more than 25 million students across all levels of the Egyptian education system, which is the largest in the Arab region. Egypt, however, scores low on education quality indicators in the Arab world and globally. This is caused by the spread of cheating, exam leaks, the growing...
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Why doesn't Egypt host the Hamas Political Bureau?
As US President-elect Donald Trump gets ready to return to the White House in January, regional and international matters are getting shuffled and mixed. Arguably the most prominent of these matters on the Arab and international agendas is the future of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. Washington has...
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The truth about Egypt’s entanglement in supporting Israel
The MV Kathrin incident has heavy political and strategic implications for the Egyptian regime, which is accused of allowing a German-owned ship transporting military arms to the Israeli army to dock at its ports at a time when Israel continues its war against the Gaza Strip for the second...
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Why a Trump win will suit Egypt’s Al-Sisi
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s eyes are on the White House. A Trump win will suit him very nicely. Indeed, not just Cairo, but other Arab and Gulf capitals also have high hopes for a Trump victory, because he is regarded as being more pragmatic than outgoing US President...
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Why has Sisi reassigned his most trusted aide?
Egyptians continue to debate the reasons for the reassignment of the now former head of the General Intelligence Service, Major General Abbas Kamel. Kamel was President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s right-hand man, the keeper of his secrets, and his companion in the military coup against the late President Mohamed Morsi...
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Death on the ‘Long Live Egypt’ trains
Three accidents have involved Egypt’s trains in one month, killing and injuring dozens of people, despite the billions of dollars supposedly being spent to improve the railway network that carries one million passengers a day. The second oldest railway network in the world often witnesses deadly accidents due to...
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Happening in Egypt: suspension of ration cards as punishment
You may get deprived of subsidised bread, flour, beans, lentils, cooking oil, sugar and pasta, with no prior notice. It is part of a new form of punishment and abuse against Egyptians, who are suffering from severe deterioration in living and economic conditions under the rule of President Abdel...
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Egypt is paying a heavy price for the Iran-Israel escalation
Egypt appears to be directly affected by the negative repercussions of the escalation between Iran and Israel. The assassination of the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, following Israel’s political murder of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Iran’s response — it fired around 200 ballistic missiles...
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Who is responsible for the Aswan epidemic?
The people of Egypt are wondering about the causes of the so-called Aswan epidemic in the south of the country. Hundreds have become sick, and people are worried about a possible spread of cholera; there have been claims that Sudanese refugees are spreading it. Despite official denials of the spread...
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US aid gives Egypt a green light for more oppression
The decision of US President Joe Biden’s administration to grant Egypt full military aid without any cuts raises questions about Washington’s commitment to human rights, given how much they are violated in the Arab world’s most populous country. The US State Department has decided to exempt Egypt from foreign...
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Egyptians are rebelling through the electricity power lines
A controversial fatwa — Islamic legal opinion — has been issued in Egypt. It gives a green light to Egyptians to steal electricity, drinking water, gas and other public utilities on the pretext of high prices, inflation and increasing taxes. The fatwa from Al-Azhar University scholar Sheikh Imam Ramadan Imam...
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Who is the winner in the Erdogan-Sisi summit?
People are on the lookout for the outcome of the historic visit of Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, to Ankara where he met with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last Wednesday. The visit comes after more than 11 years of political estrangement between the two countries. The Erdogan-Sisi summit...
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The Philadelphi Corridor proposal is a trap that can explode at the Egyptian border
The Philadelphi Corridor has become an important part of the ongoing negotiations under Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation to agree a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Israel will not withdraw from the border corridor between Gaza and Egypt. Hamas, meanwhile, insists on a complete...
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Egypt’s prisoners face death in excessively hot cells
Ahmad Hasan, 40, never thought that the few words he wrote on Facebook criticising the living conditions in Egypt would lead to his death. His mobile phone was searched, and he was arrested and thrown into a tiny cell in Qasr Al-Nil Police Department in central Cairo, along with...
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Why did Egyptians rejoice over their athletes’ failures at the Paris Olympics?
It may be difficult to understand the joy expressed by Egyptians over the failures of their country’s athletes in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Egyptian teams brought home just three medals (one of each: gold, silver, bronze); a success rate of only two per cent, amid much controversy and...
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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...
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How will Egypt be affected by Haniyeh's assassination?
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, 61, the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a huge loss for several parties, most notably the Palestinian resistance. The loss of the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority — Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, remember...
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Egyptians face illness amid a serious scarcity of medicines
According to pharmacist Mohamed Zaki, “Not a day goes by without a verbal altercation or a physical fight.” He was commenting on the atmosphere in the Egyptian pharmaceutical market, which has been hit by severe shortages that continue to exacerbate the suffering of patients and put pharmacists in an...
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Visitation rights do not exist in Egyptian prisons, where abuses continue
Family visitations to prisoners in Egypt are limited to 20-minutes once a month and can only be from behind double-glazed windows. A trip to visit loved ones can be a journey of pain. The high security prison complex north-east of Cairo is called Badr. It has witnessed many stories of...
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Egypt: Freedom in exchange for silence
They won’t say anything in exchange for their release. That’s the gist of the initiative presented to the Egyptian authorities by the families of thousands of political detainees, in the hope that it leads to their release. In return, they would retire from politics, the media and social media;...
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Egyptian life is increasingly built upon ‘buy now, pay later’
Many Egyptians are now buying basic necessities on credit. They no longer have cash to buy items such as rice, oil, meat or even medicine; instead, they borrow money to do so. Debt logbook is a deferred payment system that is becoming widespread in Egypt, especially in the south, where...
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Egypt is looking for a new salvation front
The eleventh anniversary of the 30 June demonstrations in 2013 which paved the way for Egypt’s military coup a few days later — 3 July — coincides with three things that show how the situation of Egyptians under the rule of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi turned out: Egyptians live...
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The oppression of trees in Egypt
A new form of oppression has emerged in Egypt, and this time it is not about putting people behind bars. This oppression is against nature, and it targets old and rare trees which are getting cut down all over the country under the pretext of expanding roads, building bridges...