{"id":13008,"date":"2018-08-28T09:25:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T09:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13008"},"modified":"2018-08-28T09:25:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T09:25:15","slug":"egyptian-opposition-calls-for-release-of-former-diplomat-marzouk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13008","title":{"rendered":"Egyptian opposition calls for release of former diplomat Marzouk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

An opposition coalition of left-leaning and secular parties in Egypt<\/a> has called for the immediate release of a former diplomat who was arrested after calling for a referendum on President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi<\/a>‘s government.<\/p>\n

Maasoum Marzouk was arrested on Thursday<\/a> along with two others and ordered to remain in custody for 15 days pending an investigation into terror-related charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marzouk and the other detainees – economist Raied Salama and Yehia al-Qazzaz, a geology professor – were accused by state-run media of cooperating with the banned\u00a0<\/span>Muslim Brotherhood<\/a>\u00a0group, which Egypt’s government designated as a “terrorist” group in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, the Civil Democratic Movement coalition said in a press conference that the arrests were “part of the government crackdown to silence opposition voices”.<\/p>\n

At the press conference, Mohammed Anwar Sadat, nephew of Egypt’s former leader Anwar Sadat<\/a>, called for “genuine political reform” and “for the President and the state to listen” to the opposition.<\/p>\n

Marzouk, who was assistant minister of foreign affairs under former President Hosni Mubarak<\/a>, served in the Egyptian army’s special forces and is a veteran of the 1973 war with Israel.<\/p>\n

He is also a former Egyptian ambassador to Uganda, Finland and Estonia.<\/p>\n

More recently, he helped to form the The People’s Democratic Party and served as an adviser and spokesman for the presidential campaign of\u00a0Hamdeen Sabbahi<\/a>, a left-wing candidate who ran against Sisi in the 2014 elections.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Monday’s press conference, Sabbahi called for change, saying Sisi’s government had failed.<\/p>\n

“We believe that this regime must be changed,” he said. “This is a failed power. This is a repressive power … which violated and insulted the constitution.”<\/p>\n

In a statement on August 5, Marzouk called for protests in Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, saying that if his initiative was not accepted, he would hold a “popular conference” there.<\/p>\n

The Square was the epicentre of the 2011 mass uprising that led to the downfall of Mubarak.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He had also campaigned for the release of all political prisoners, the formation of a transitional government council and a 10-year ban on political candidacy for anyone who had served in government or parliament over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Sisi won a second four-year term<\/a> in April after securing more than 90 percent of the vote in a presidential election that was criticised<\/a> as being a one-man show with no credible opposition.<\/p>\n

At least six candidates were either jailed, prosecuted or forced to pull out of the race<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since coming to power after leading the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi<\/a> in 2013, Sisi’s government has presided over a sweeping crackdown on dissent<\/a>, jailing thousands of dissidents and journalists.<\/p>\n

The government has banned unauthorised protests, heavily restricted civil society groups and blocked hundreds of websites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An opposition coalition of left-leaning and secular parties in Egypt has called for the immediate release of a former diplomat who was arrested after calling for a referendum on President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government. Maasoum Marzouk was arrested on Thursday along with two others and ordered to remain in custody for 15 days pending an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}