Security forces reportedly use teargas to break up demonstrations over transfer of islands to Saudi Arabia

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Security forces in Egypt have used teargas to disperse small protests against the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, witnesses have said, deterring what opposition groups had expected to be a day of large demonstrations against his rule.

This month, thousands of Egyptians angered by Sisi’s transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia called for his government to fall in the largest demonstration since the former military general took office in 2014.

On Monday, riot police backed by armoured vehicles were positioned in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focus of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, and at a suburban square where at least 600 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were killed in August 2013 in anticipation of protests.

Security forces moved swiftly, dispersing a march in the Dokki neighbourhood with teargas as it started, a witness said. Videos and pictures posted on social media also showed that teargas was used at a small protest in the Imbaba district. Jets and helicopters circled over Cairo.

Police have arrested over 90 people across eight governorates in recent days, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Groups of youth were arrested at coffee shops and others were targeted in their homes, the Cairo-based human rights group added.

The ministry of interior was not immediately available for comment. On Sunday, the interior minister, Magdi Abdel Ghaffar, said there would be no leniency against any “any attempts to destabilise national security and any vital public or police facilities”.

Sisi on Sunday urged citizens to defend the state and its institutions from the “forces of evil”, an apparent reference to the protests planned for Monday.

The protests, which coincided with a national holiday celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula in 1982, came as the Egyptian president faced mounting criticism for a government accord accepting that the uninhabited Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir are in Saudi waters.

Islands map The deal on Tiran and Sanafir paves the way for the construction of a bridge linking Saudi Arabia to Sharm el-Sheikh, at the tip of the Sinai peninsula



Saudi and Egyptian officials say the islands belong to Saudi Arabia and were only under Egyptian control because Riyadh had asked Cairo in 1950 to protect them.

The announcement came during a visit to Egypt this month by the Saudi monarch, King Salman, as the kingdom announced a multibillion-dollar package of aid and investment, fuelling charges that the islands were sold off.

Popular backlash to the decision evolved into broader opposition against Sisi and his government earlier this month, when protests carrying the 2011-era chant “down with military rule” spilled into the streets of central Cairo.







