Egypt is to make it illegal to "insult" the revolts that led to the ouster of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's two predecessors, his office said on Wednesday. Hosni Mubarak stepped down after an 18-day uprising began on January 25, 2011, and his successor Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by then army chief Sisi after mass street protests erupted on June 30, 2013.
"A law is being drafted to criminalise insulting the January 25 and June 30 revolutions," a statement from Sisi's office said, without saying when it will be issued. The move comes amid a growing perception that Mubarak's once hated regime is being rehabilitated, and that the uprising that ended his three decades of autocratic rule was a foreign plot to destabilise Egypt.
Morsi, the country's first freely elected president, was ousted by Sisi after mass street protests demanding the Islamist's resignation after just one year in office. While Morsi and his top aides are on trial in several cases, a Cairo court on Saturday dropped murder and corruption charges against Mubarak and seven aides in a case involving the deaths of some of the roughly 800 demonstrators killed in the 2011 revolt. The prosecution has filed an appeal against the verdict. A government crackdown targeting Morsi supporters has left at least 1,400 people dead and thousands imprisoned, mostly from his Muslim Brotherhood movement.
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