Cameron’s UK Invitation to Egyptian Leader Threatens National Security

If a bomb brought down the Airbus A321, that would devastate Egypt’s tourism industry, still recovering from years of political turmoil.

Earlier this week Labour QC Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws told the House of Lords Mr Sisi had been “responsible for the murder of at least a thousand unarmed protesters” and urged Mr Cameron to confront him over “his tyranny”.

But Maha Azzam from the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, who was in Downing Street to protest the visit, sees things differently.

Britain will take a more robust approach towards tackling all kinds of extremism, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday, referring to Britian’s review of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“He took the presidency by the sword, by killing”, said a man who gave his name as Abu Hamza. Now that Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood is well out of power, Egyptians are no longer so desperate for military rule. What about their human rights? “What message does that send out to the world?” Newspapers and websites have been closed down, journalists killed and imprisoned.

Meanwhile, tourists who had made it through the long queues for security in the coastal resort were furious when eight EasyJets flights were cancelled by Egyptian authorities. Lindsey German from Stop the War said she was “disgusted” at Cameron’s invite because it was justifying the deaths and repression carried out by Sisi’s regime.

“They were happy with that”, he said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation powers to help rebuild Libya, beset by violence since an uprising backed by the Western military alliance toppled leader Muammar Gaddafi, in an interview on Tuesday.

In London, Cameron said on Thursday that it was “right to act”, but emphasized that the measures were only temporary.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said that it would not discuss details of people who it may or may not be investigating, or planning to arrest.

His comments came hours after campaign groups called on Cameron to raise Egyptian human rights concerns during Sisi’s visit. “That means raising serious human rights concerns including the repressive laws which are putting peaceful protesters behind bars”, Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher Nicholas Piachaud told the IB Times.

Speaking after his meeting with Cameron, el-Sissi said the two countries were working intensively together in a spirit of close co-operation … to address this and get back to normal as soon as possible. “He is a threat to worldwide security”, Azzam said. Indeed, since Morsi’s removal, Egypt’s criminal justice system has become little more than a tool for repressing dissent.

“Libya is a danger that threatens all of us”. “Rather than rolling out the red carpet to President (El-Sissi) the prime minister should suspend arms exports to Egypt until democratic and civil rights are restored”. Sisi’s visit to the United Kingdom has been promoted in this way – and, of course, the downing of the Russian airliner flying out of the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh lent weight to that narrative.

“It was so shocking to us, me and my two friends couldn’t speak to each other for two days”.