Last March, Tantawi, the former head of the left-wing Karama Party, announced that he would return to Cairo on Saturday and his intention to run for the upcoming presidential elections. He published the date of arrival of the EgyptAir flight, on which he was supposed to arrive in Cairo.
Former leftist MP Ahmed Al-Tantawi, who revealed his intention to run for the presidential elections in Egypt in 2024, announced that he had decided to postpone his return to his country after a number of his relatives were arrested and referred to an exceptional judiciary on charges of “terrorism.”
“I decided to postpone my return to my homeland, which was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, to a later date, which will not be announced,” Tantawi wrote on his Facebook page. He added, addressing his supporters, “to a meeting soon on the land of Egypt,” explaining that he would leave “during this week” Beirut, where he is currently.
And last March, Tantawi, the former head of the left-wing Karama Party, announced that he would return to Cairo on Saturday and his intention to run for the upcoming presidential elections. He published the date of arrival of the EgyptAir flight, on which he was supposed to arrive in Cairo.
However, on Tuesday, his aunt and uncle, aged 61 and 71, and about ten of his supporters were arrested in the Kafr El-Sheikh governorate, from which he hails, according to human rights activists.
The detainees appeared Thursday before the State Security Prosecution in Cairo, according to what Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told AFP. Human rights lawyer Khaled Ali confirmed that relatives and supporters of Tantawi were accused of “financing” a “terrorist” organization and “possessing propaganda leaflets and weapons.”
The arrests coincided with the launch in Cairo, on Wednesday, of the “national dialogue” sessions called for by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with the participation of political parties and factions.
In March 2018, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was re-elected with more than 97 percent of the vote in an election that saw no surprises and in which his only opponent was one of his biggest supporters.
In 2019, a controversial constitutional reform was approved in a referendum, according to which Sisi’s second term was extended from four to six years until 2024. He can run for a third term of six years in 2024.
Human Rights Watch said that “there will be no free elections as long as the authorities violate basic rights to intimidate critical voices.” The organization added that the arrest of Tantawi’s relatives “demonstrates that Sisi’s authority is determined to crush peaceful dissent.”
This year, Egypt reactivated the presidential pardon committee for political prisoners, whose number, according to human rights organizations, is approximately 60,000.
