• EGYPT
  • December 15, 2014
  • 4 minutes read

ERC Condemns Sisi Regime’s Denial of Entry to Egypt of U.S scholar, Michele Dunne

ERC Condemns Sisi Regime’s Denial of Entry to Egypt of U.S scholar, Michele Dunne

 The Egyptian authority’s denial of entry into Egypt of the the well known scholar Michelle Dunne who is a Senior Associate at the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment  for International Peace, is yet another example of the intolerance of the military regime in Egypt to any dissent. An intolerance that expresses itself through violent oppression of its population and through a refusal to countenance any academic and policy criticism from those outside Egypt.



 
The ERC strongly condemns the denial of entry of Ms Dunne to Egypt to attend a conference.  On her arrrival to Cairo airport Ms Dunne was held there for  several hours before being put on a flight out of the country.


 
The ERC draws attention to the continuing  clamp down on freedom of expression and academic freedom  by the Egyptian regime; ranging from travel bans to killings.  Only last month  Dr. Tarek Ghandour, Dermatology Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, died from deliberate medical negligence in Shebin Prison. He had been sentenced by the military regime to 5 years in jail. University campuses are teaming with security personnel and students are constant targets of arbitrary arrest, torture and shootings. The military regime has over 40,000 dissidents in its prisons.


 
Ms Dunne’s balanced and academic criticism of the current violations in Egypt and her pointing to Egypt’s failed transition to democracy and her criticism along with other leading scholars in the US in an open letter to President Obama criticising his meeting with General Sisi at the United Nations General Assembly in September has made her a target of a regime that is intolerant of all dissent.
 


Dr Maha Azzam, Head of the the  ERC said, “It is incumbent on all those who support democracy and human rights to continue to speak out against the violations that are increasing daily in Egypt, and not to succumb to the pressures of a military regime that wants to hide the truth from the outside world that Egyptians today are experiencing one of the worst dictatorships in the world.