Month after month, there are dozens of attacks in Sinai against security forces, and recently Christians, carried out by an ISIS affiliate, in an area that’s been in an almost constant state of emergency since 2014.
The fighting there is a major headache for President Sisi, who has sold himself as the only guarantor of Egypt’s security and stability.
Sisi’s government, which already has put dozens of journalists in jail, has put a lid on independent reporting in Sinai.
Journalism that deviates from official accounts has been criminalised under an anti-terror law. And a narrative is being pushed out across all forms of pro-government media, that the army’s operations in Sinai are successful, just, and even heroic.
That doesn’t always square with the evidence, the most recent case in point being a video that was leaked, appearing to show brutal, extrajudicial killings by militias fighting on the government’s side.
Contributors:
Joe Stork, deputy director for MENA, Human Rights Watch
Sherine Tadros, Head of UN office in New York, Amnesty International
Maged Mandour, Egyptian writer & researcher
Nancy Okail, executive director, Tahrir Institute for Middle Eastern Policy
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