Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) sheds light on the increased repression in Egypt as the presidential elections for next December approach. The violations targeted potential presidential candidates running against Sisi and their supporters confirm the flawed electoral process, which lacks integrity and impartiality.
The arrest of dozens of people, forcibly disappearing them, and charging them arbitrarily proves that the electoral process is nothing but a show that lacks any political freedom.
The presence of tens of thousands of political detainees behind bars, and victims of deliberate medical negligence and extrajudicial killings, in addition to suppressing freedom of expression, controlling all media outlets, monitoring social media platforms, and charging critics of the current situation in the country of spreading false news, all of which has created an unprecedented state of fear.
Elections in Egypt are taking place at a time in which the economic crisis has reached a record level, where more than half of Egyptians live below the poverty line and their suffering was exacerbated by the increase in prices of goods as well as the new power outage policy.
Over the past ten years, the Egyptian regime introduced constitutional and legal amendments to the elections’ law, tailoring it to fit the current regime only for presidential and legislative elections in Egypt.
Nevertheless, the regime still imposed more repressive measures to discourage and threaten any potential candidate wishing to run for the presidential elections.
Holding elections in this atmosphere of arrests, repression, abuse, control over media outlets inside the country, and the politicisation of the judiciary leaves no room for integral or transparent elections, despite media attempts to gain the support of the international community and its institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund.
AOHR UK sends an alert to the international community, international media, and party leaders, to impose maximum political and economic pressure on the Egyptian regime to stop its repression against its opponents who wish to run for the elections, to release all political detainees, and to stop arresting more citizens who exercise their rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the law.
