Only a few days separated the arrest of Mohamed Abu El-Diyar, campaign manager for Egyptian opposition figure Ahmed Tantawy, and his release, while Tantawy, who was transferred to 10th of Ramadan prison, remains in detention serving his sentence, after a one-year prison sentence against him was upheld in the case known in the media as the “popular endorsements” case, concerning endorsements filled out during the presidential election held last December.
The Egyptian authorities arrested opposition politician Ahmed Tantawy and his campaign manager at the court on Monday 27 May, after an Egyptian court upheld their prison sentence, along with 21 members of his election campaign, on charges of inciting and assisting in the crime of “printing and circulating election process papers without permission from the competent authority”.
One of the conditions set by the Egyptian authorities for running in the presidential election was that a candidate submit 25,000 endorsements from 15 Egyptian governorates, or obtain the support of 20 MPs. Only Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who indeed won the last election and a new presidential term, was able to meet that endorsement requirement.
On Friday 13 October, the former MP announced at a press conference attended by hundreds of his campaign supporters and Egyptian opposition figures that he had collected only about half of the endorsements required to complete his official candidacy for the presidency, having gathered just 14,000 of 25,000. Tantawy stressed to his supporters at the conference that he “did not withdraw“, adding that he had been “directly prevented” by the authorities from competing.
The Popular Endorsements and the Atmosphere of the Trial
Last February, an Egyptian court sentenced the opposition figure, who was prevented from running in the presidential election, to one year in prison with labour and banned him from running in any election for five years. On 9 May, a Cairo misdemeanour appeals court upheld the same sentence against Mohamed Abu El-Diyar, Tantawy’s campaign manager.
The “popular endorsements” case arose from the call by the opposition figure and former MP Tantawy for citizens wishing to register endorsements for him to fill out handwritten forms so that he could complete his official candidacy in the presidential election. This came after he accused the Egyptian authorities of “systematic restrictions” against his supporters to prevent him from collecting the endorsements needed to run, after which the authorities referred Tantawy, his campaign manager and a number of campaign members to criminal court in November 2023.
Islam Salama, a member of the defence team in the popular endorsements case, tells Zawia3 that the first-instance ruling was one year in prison, suspended pending appeal, and at the second level of litigation, the appeal, the ruling was upheld, which is why Tantawy was taken into custody in the courtroom. He explains that Tantawy and his campaign members have a third level of litigation, cassation, which will be filed once the defence obtains an official copy of the appeal ruling.
He points out that the upheld ruling includes banning Tantawy from running for five years in all elections, whether parliamentary or presidential.
On the atmosphere of the trial, he adds: “The trial, at both the first and second levels, involved many violations, such as being prevented from photocopying the case papers, the failure to hear witnesses or to respond to any of the defence’s requests, while the lawyers were able to plead in two sessions at the first level and two sessions at the second.”
For his part, human rights lawyer Yasser Saad says that lawyer Mohamed Abu El-Diyar was released after the head of the Bar Association intervened, pending the outcome of the appeal opposition Abu El-Diyar had filed earlier after the second-level ruling, explaining that Abu El-Diyar had left the courtroom before the ruling was issued, which makes it a ruling issued in deemed presence (with his lawyers present) rather than in his personal presence.
Saad points out that Tantawy now has only one remaining level of litigation, cassation, which could take months, perhaps a year, before a cassation hearing is set, or he could be pardoned by presidential decree, stressing that this ruling is effectively a ruling against everyone who tries to express an opinion different from the prevailing one in this state. “I see this ruling as political, and legal procedures were not followed to guarantee a fair trial, whether we disagree or agree with him.”
The human rights lawyer explains that legally the ruling does not affect Tantawy’s political career, unless forging endorsements is considered a crime involving moral turpitude, which could be exploited to prevent him from competing in any future elections, stressing that legally the ruling does not obstruct the founding of the Hope Current party that Tantawy is seeking to establish.
For her part, Rasha Kandil, media spokesperson for the Hope Current party and wife of Egyptian opposition figure Ahmed Tantawy, believes the ruling is political punishment, because Tantawy tried, using his legal and constitutional right, to offer a civil democratic alternative to the current failed and fascist authority.
She added that Tantawy acknowledged in court his responsibility for the popular endorsements, and that he had consulted the party’s legal committee, which confirmed that they are informal documents that carry no legal weight and are not election process papers.
In the same context, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights stressed that the decision to uphold and enforce the ruling, and indeed the ruling itself, is a new episode in the systematic targeting of Tantawy and his supporters, which began as soon as he announced his intention to collect the endorsement forms required to enter the presidential race in September 2023. Since then, violations against the opposition politician, after he sought to run in the presidential election, and against his supporters and campaign members have not stopped, in breach of all constitutional and legal guarantees.
The initiative explained in its statement that the violations it monitored and documented with other media and human rights organisations took many forms, including the arbitrary arrest of dozens of his supporters and the obstruction of citizens’ attempts to register endorsement forms for him at notary offices by various means, including intimidation and physical violence against those wishing to register endorsements. The initiative warned at the time that intimidating Tantawy’s supporters in this blatant way is in fact intimidation of everyone who wishes to engage in peaceful political work and exercise their constitutional right to political participation.
Revenge on Those Who Try
A number of human rights organisations that condemned the upholding of Tantawy’s sentence considered that the ruling proves once again that the Egyptian authorities will meet any independent attempt to challenge President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s grip on power with decisive revenge, as with this ruling Tantawy joins the list of other former presidential candidates who were imprisoned or placed under house arrest for challenging the president in the 2018 election.
The organisations also stressed in their statement that “the appeal court’s decision also confirms the warnings our organisations have repeated time and again that the Egyptian authorities’ promises of political reform are not serious and seek only to calm criticism of their human rights record. Political activity remains effectively banned.”
The ruling against Tantawy was not the first of its kind, as most candidates who decided to run against current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in presidential elections faced rulings that sent some of them to prison, while others received suspended sentences. Human rights lawyer Khaled Ali was sentenced to three months in prison in an attempt to prevent him from running in the 2018 presidential election, and after the presidential election the appeal court upheld the ruling. The court found him guilty of “offending public decency” because of a photo showing him celebrating his court victory after he succeeded in annulling the Egyptian government’s decision to cede the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.
Amnesty International stressed in a statement in 2017 that Khaled Ali’s politically motivated conviction was a clear sign that the Egyptian authorities intended to remove any rival who might stand in the way of President El-Sisi’s victory in the following year’s election, and also showed the government’s ferocious determination to crush dissent in order to entrench its power.
In the same year, shortly before the 2018 presidential election, the North Cairo Military Court sentenced potential presidential candidate Colonel Ahmed Konsowa to six years in prison with labour, after he appeared in a video on social media in his military uniform announcing his decision to run for president.
The military judiciary charged Konsowa with disobeying military orders by expressing his political views and violating the requirements of the military system and military orders and instructions by appearing in a Facebook video announcing his plan to run for president.
In the same election, security forces arrested potential presidential candidate and former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sami Anan after he announced his intention to run.
In December 2019, the Egyptian authorities released Anan, about two years after his arrest; Anan spent several months of his detention in the military prison before being moved in July 2018 to the military hospital after a serious health setback. Amnesty International commented that the Egyptian authorities are keen to arrest and harass anyone who challenges President El-Sisi, in line with the Egyptian government’s continuing efforts to crush dissent and consolidate power by attacking civil society, activists and human rights defenders in the country.
A Political Ruling Aimed at Obstruction and Exclusion
Zohdy El-Shamy, head of the board of trustees of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, considers the ruling against Tantawy a negative development in Egypt’s situation. He sees the ruling as part of the continuation of undemocratic conditions and restrictions on freedoms, on serious political activity and on all public freedoms.
El-Shamy adds: Tantawy was a presidential candidate and was subjected to a series of violations and harassment that we all know about and witnessed, pointing out that he himself was only able to register an endorsement for Tantawy with great difficulty, and that many leaders of the Alliance party were unable to register endorsements for him.
The head of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party’s board of trustees stresses that Tantawy and his campaign faced restrictions on their movement and more than 150 of his supporters were arrested, despite the authorities’ recent talk of political reform and the importance of the National Dialogue, pointing out that the Popular Alliance did not take part in the National Dialogue because it is not serious, given what the authorities are doing on the ground, continuing the pretrial detention of politicians and human rights defenders and abusing others.
For his part, Akram Ismail, a leader in the Bread and Freedom Party and a member of the Civil Movement, believes that what we have seen over ten years is that the voice that always wins in Egypt is the decisive voice that wants to silence any opposition and any attempt to ease the state of repression, pointing to the regime’s desire to take revenge on those behind such attempts (referring to human rights lawyer Khaled Ali, Sami Anan and others).
Ismail adds that there is a party within Egypt’s ruling system that believes this country can only be governed with a very high level of repression of free and opposition voices, and this happens every time there is an attempt to ease the repressive situation that has existed for years, which is what happened with Tantawy, pointing out that this voice within the regime prevails over other voices that talk of openness or easing the grip and the like.
The Bread and Freedom leader believes the aim of the ruling against Tantawy is to keep him out of political life in general, as well as to take revenge on him for daring to exercise his right to run in the presidential election and defy the regime’s wishes.
The Constitution Party expressed its total rejection of the practice of removing political opponents to prisons as a tool to settle political disputes, stressing that democracy is not a luxury that can be dispensed with in building a modern civil state in which people are not punished for their ideas or their dream of change, and that there is no future without freedoms and no stability without preserving all rights of expression, pluralism and difference for all citizens equally.
In this context, the Constitution Party called on the Civil Democratic Movement and its parties to put at the top of their priorities ways of confronting the danger of the continued imprisonment of the peaceful opposition, whether those seeking a place in electoral contests or those rejecting Israeli crimes in Palestine.
In the same context, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party called in a statement on the relevant authority to issue a pardon for Ahmed Tantawy and his comrades convicted in the endorsements case.
