The reality is that since July 2013, when Mr. Sisi overthrew President Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, at least 16,000 people have been jailed for their views — most for being members or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. The regime has also imprisoned secular activists, such as Ahmed Maher, a founder of the April 6 youth movement, for an unauthorized protest, and journalists, including three from Al Jazeera who were convicted in July on charges of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood.

Earlier this year, a judge handed down more than 1,200 death sentences in two mass trials, again mostly to those accused of being Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters. (The number of death sentences was later reduced to 277 and the judge was removed from his court after international condemnation.)

As a draconian “protest law” that went into effect last November has almost entirely eliminated street protests, university campuses have become one of the few places of opposition. Since the school year began on Oct. 11, with harsh new government-directed security forces on campuses, at least 200 students have been arrested across the country for protesting.

Much like those billboards in New York, Mr. Sisi’s trajectory from head of military intelligence to president is a political mirage being peddled by the regime and bought by its supporters, who detest the Muslim Brotherhood enough to allow themselves to be deluded into thinking that this authoritarian repression will somehow spare them. I was glad to see Mr. Morsi go, because he was more intent on a Muslim Brotherhood agenda than on fulfilling his electoral mandate of continuing the goals of our revolution. But I also adamantly oppose Mr. Sisi and the military regime that backs him.

Before Mr. Sisi’s General Assembly address, Human Rights Watch had urged the United Nations to investigate Mr. Sisi and at least nine senior security officials for their roles in the Rabaa massacre of Aug. 14, 2013, in which Egyptian security forces killed between 817 and 1,000 people while breaking up sit-ins at Rabaa and Nahda Squares in Cairo. The majority of those killed were supporters of Mr. Morsi. In a special report, Human Rights Watch called it one of the worst incidents of mass killings of demonstrators in recent history.