Anti-government protests again broke out in Egypt Friday night calling on President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to step down, CBC News has reported.
The former army general has allegedly overseen an unprecedented political crackdown, silencing critics and jailing thousands. el-Sissi came to power with the military’s ouster of an elected but divisive Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi in 2013, amid mass protests against his one-year-rule.
In the capital, Cairo, dozens of protesters gathered Friday night near Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising that toppled longtime autocrat, Hosni Mubarak.
Demonstrators chanted slogans echoing the Arab Spring uprisings that briefly defied dictatorships across the region.
The protesters were responding to a call by a self-exiled businessman who claimed corruption by the military and government without providing evidence.
In viral social media videos posted over the past weeks, Muhammad Ali alleged his contracting business had witnessed the large-scale misuse of public funds in the building of luxurious hotels, presidential palaces and a tomb for el-Sissi’s mother, who died in 2014.
