Egypt, a republic of fear: Ex-pres. candidate

On Sunday, Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh said that contrary to the army-backed government’s claims, Egypt was not on a path to democracy.
 
"Our conscience does not let us participate in an operation to deceive the Egyptian people and act like there are elections when there are not," Abol Fotouh said.
 
    "This is a republic of fear," said the 62-year-old politician, who came fourth in Egypt's 2012 presidential election.
 
He noted there are currently 21,000 activists in the country’s prisons, adding that "there is no democratic path in Egypt."
 
    "Any Egyptian who wants to express his opinion is afraid that he will be harmed, detained, that his house will be stormed, or a case against him will be fabricated, or it will be said that 'you are insulting the judiciary'," he said.
 
Activists from Abol Fotouh's Strong Egypt party were arrested for opposing a new constitution that was approved in a referendum last month.
 
"Egyptians will not live in this republic of fear after January 25," he said, referring to the 2011 popular revolt that led to the downfall of Egypt’s longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak.
 
"The nations that have broken the fear barrier will not again surrender (to it)," he pointed out.
 
Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3 when the army ousted the country’s first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi, suspended the constitution, and dissolved the parliament. It also appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mahmoud Mansour as the new interim president.
 
On December 25, the military-appointed government listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization over alleged involvement in a deadly bombing, without investigating or providing any evidence.
 
Thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have been arrested and accused of inciting unrest in the North African country.
 
Amnesty International has criticized Egyptian authorities for using an “unprecedented scale” of violence against protesters and dealing “a series of damaging blows to human rights.”
 
According to the UK-based rights group, 1,400 people have been killed in the political violence since Morsi’s ouster, "most of them due to excessive force used by security forces."