Thousands of pro-democracy protesters marched in cities across Egypt on Friday to demand the resignation of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, according Al Jazeera. Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators chanting “rise up, fear not, Sisi must go” and “the people demand the regime’s fall.” Protests were reported in the capital Cairo, the second-biggest city of Alexandria and Suez. Officers in civilian uniforms confronted the demonstrators who tried approaching Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where mass protests started in 2011, which toppled Hosni Mubarak. There were several reports of arrests made in the capital, and teargas being used on demonstrators. The demonstrations came after self-exiled Egyptian businessman and actor Mohamed Ali accused President el-Sisi of corruption and called on people to take to the streets and demand the leader be removed. El-Sisi has dismissed the allegations as “lies.” “If el-Sisi does not announce his resignation by Thursday, then the Egyptian people will come out to the squares on Friday in protest,” Ali said in a video posted on Tuesday. Ali first began posting his videos on September 2. His latest videos have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of times and have turned him into a public figure in his homeland. In a video on Friday that was published as protests were gaining momentum, Ali encouraged the people to stand strong and continue demanding their rights.
“God is great … enough already, I want to come back to Egypt. I miss Egypt and my people. May God strengthen your resolve,” he said. Friday’s protests were a rare public display of dissent in the country. Egypt outlawed all unauthorised demonstrations in 2013 after el-Sisi, as defence minister, led the military’s overthrow of democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi following mass protests.
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