Egyptian defendants wait behind bars for the verdict in their retrial over a 2012 stadium riot in the canal city of Port Said at the police academy on the outskirts of the capital Cairo on April 30, 2016. Amr Sayed/Zuma Press/PA Images. All rights reserved.Over the next few months, the Egyptian regime is going to face a number of domestic challenges it has preempted and started to prepare for by initiating repressive legal and political campaigns.
The first of these challenges is the transfer of the two islands in the Red Sea from Egypt to Saudi Arabia; a decision that has subjected the regime to considerable internal pressure from the opposition.
The first mass protests since the coup of 2013 took place with the transfer of these islands. A legal battle, led by the potential presidential candidate Khaled Ali, to halt the transfer concluded with a victory, as the high administrative court deemed the transfer void.
