Egyptian politicians and oppositionists in the United States underestimated the effectiveness of attempts by the regime of the coup leader, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, to influence the position of the US Congress against the Muslim Brotherhood, and to make it include them in the lists of terrorism or consider it as a terrorist group like Daesh.

In statements to Arab21, they predicted that the regime’s efforts would fail, especially in light of the formation of the new Democratic-dominated Congress formation and El-Sisi’s involvement himself in human rights violations, notably the Murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni.
The so-called popular campaign to include the Muslim Brotherhood on terrorism lists is preparing a visit to the US Congress next March to hand over documents proving “the group’s involvement in terrorist operations and the joining of a large number of its members to Daesh.”
New old endeavours
The Founding Director of the Liberal Democracy Institute of Egypt, Dalia Ziada, revealed that the visit would include other countries such as the UK and Germany to provide all the evidence they have at hand, without disclosing the sources of these evidence that the regime claimed to have against the group’s activity.
These efforts come as part of an Egyptian effort backed by regional states that started in 2015 to persuade former US President Barack Obama to include the Muslim Brotherhood in terrorist groups but failed to achieve any of their endeavours.
In December 2013, the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorist group” and asserted that “all its activities, including demonstration, are prohibited.” Following that decision, and for five years, El-Sisi’s regime has dissolved the Muslim Brotherhood’s charitable societies, seized, and confiscated their properties.
Negative consequences
The former Egyptian parliamentarian and the head of Al-Hiwar Centre (The Centre for Arab Culture and Dialogue) in Washington, Abdel Mawjoud Dardiri, ridiculed the efforts of the popular campaign to be launched, saying: “Dalia and her sisters are looking for a space and a few dollars after its price rise in Egypt, which is beset by soldiers and mercenaries.”
He predicted in his interview with Arabi21 that the popular campaign would reach negative consequences under the current circumstances. He pointed out that “El-Sisi’s falsification has been exposed since 2013, and the Congress is now talking about standing against the dictatorial regimes in the region after the crimes of the “saw” (bin Salman) in Yemen and his assassination and dismembering of the martyr Jamal Khashoggi, and as well as the role of Egypt in the torture and murder of Regeni.”
Dardiri described El-Sisi’s regime as “a fortress of sand falling apart in the face of economic, political and social failure, referring to the article by Michel Dunne, a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who described El-Sisi’s regime as “a fortress of sand, holed up in his green zone.”
He pointed out that “Most of the Congress knows that el-Sisi’s regime, like the regime of “the saw” (bin Salman,) is based on repression and corruption and unless Israel and its Zionist supporters were in Washington, support for el-Sisi’s regime will stop.”
Dardiri believed that “The visit to the People’s Campaign has dimensions of personal utility, and trying to beautify the ugly regime which killed more than one thousand Egyptians in one day, and imprisoned more than 60 thousand Egyptians, and according to US reports, is one of the main sources of terrorism and corruption in the region. He added that what the Italian parliament did with El-Sisi parliament is not surprising.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi at the House of Representatives in Cairo, Egypt on 2 June 2018 [Egyptian President Office/Apaimages]