Monday (May 4th): You want the internet to forget something? Good luck with that!

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Name? Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Westphalian identity? Egyptian

Age? 65

Why is he in the news? Two years ago he imprisoned a young Egyptian filmmaker who worked on a video mocking el-Sisi. Now, two years later, that young filmmaker (Shady Habash) has died while still awaiting his trial. In October he wrote in a letter ‘Prison doesn’t kill, loneliness does.’

Why do we care? The world is so occupied with corona that it does not devote any time to criticising oppression. Well, some governments are busy locking their own citizens inside anyways. Or have you heard anything from the EU about Orban?

Why should you care? This should not become a habit. Usually we do not believe in Social Media Justice Warriors but given the circumstances, we should give it a shot. Go ahead and share the video and do the same with any other news item like this, you will soon realise there are too many similar stories out there. 

Who else cares? Poet and lyricist Galal al-Beheiry and Mohamed Abdel-Basset who played the song from his car in Kuwait as well as five other people that were arrested two years ago due to “connections” to the video. They are still in prison under similar conditions that Shady or former Egyptian president Morsi was. Oh btw, he also died in prison due to horrible conditions and not receiving proper medical treatment…ironic, isn’t it?

Any further comments? If there is one thing autocratic leaders misunderstand about the internet it is that if you want something off the internet, and actively work on that, it will go viral. The internet does not like censorship. El-Sisi should have asked Xi “the pooh” or Erdogan who likes goats. In case you have not seen the video el-Sisi imprisoned young people for, here you have it. Feel free to share.

The video that caused all of this

Joshua Dario Hasenstab

General Coordinator