President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on his first European trip, November 2014. Demotix/ Paolo Gargini. All rights reserved.The difficult debate about how to deal with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his military regime was given a literal illustration in early June 2015, when within a matter of days President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi first shook German chancellor Angela Merkel by the hand, and promptly cancelled his trip to South Africa in fear of his potential arrest.
The question of how to deal with a regime that has pushed Egypt back into the darkest times of military rule, arrested thousands of oppositionists and sentenced hundreds to life-long imprisonment or even death, one that has cut local NGOs off from international support and that bans academics from travelling to international conferences has become a constant debate in foreign ministries and directorate-generals in Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Washington and elsewhere.
“Egyptians are not ready for democracy” was already an oft-iterated dictum during the Mubarak era, and particularly since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, many Egyptians agree that security is more important than democracy for the country at present. Hence, protests against the harsh crackdown against anybody who dares to criticize the government remain limited.
