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Accused of Being a Muslim Brothers Ally, a Call for Interpol to Arrest Amr Waked

Accused of Being a Muslim Brothers Ally, a Call for Interpol to Arrest Amr Waked

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English

Monday 9 September 201906:26 pm
إقرأ باللغة العربية:

بتهمة "التحالف مع الإخوان"... بلاغ يطالب بإخطار الإنتربول للقبض على الممثل عمرو واكد

Only a few hours after Egyptian super star Amr Waked's tweet in which he suggested forming of a new 'Tamarod' (Rebellion) campaign to expel the military from political life, dismissing its generals and making them accountable for "what they did to the country and its crumbling economy", a lawyer close to the Sisi regime revealed his submission of a complaint against Waked to Egypt's Attorney-General on the 8th of September, requesting an alert the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) to put his name on the Red Notices list,  for his arrest and handover to the Egyptian authorities, to be followed by a referral to an urgent criminal trial.

The complaint accused Waked of "incitement against the state and allying with the [Muslim] Brotherhood organization" which Egypt considers a terrorist group.

On the 7th of September, Waked – who currently resides outside of Egypt – wrote: "I suggest the formation of a movement like Tamarod with the goal of fully removing the military from political life and isolating all the current leadership of the army, and to bring them to account for what they did to the country and to its economy that has collapsed and the society that they have destroyed – to be replaced with patriotic officers who are non-politicized and are subordinated to the civilian authority and its oversight apparatuses."

'Tamarod' ('Rebellion') was a popular movement that emerged during the rule of the deceased president and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Morsi – the first democratically-elected president in the country's history. The leaders of the Tamarod movement were able to secure the signatures of millions of Egyptians demanding Morsi's dismissal – however, observers say that the movement was supported by the Egyptian military which wanted to remove Morsi from Egypt's presidency.

In another tweet posted on the same day, Waked declared: "The army's money is the state's money and the military's financial activities should be subject to oversight by civilian institutions. Financial activities in full, and not just a part."

Hours after Amer Waked tweeted about organizing a campaign to limit the army’s influence on political life in Egypt, a lawyer filed a claim with the attorney general to issue an Interpol warrant of arrest for the super star.
Amr Waked, the star who criticized the President, has been subject to recent smear campaigns, lives in exile since he was told a warrant of arrest was issued against him.

It should be noted that Waked's tweets arrive at the back of a series of videos released of an Egyptian contractor and actor named Mohammed Ali, in which Ali "revealed the rampant corruption within the Egyptian military institution" in addition to major corruption files allegedly pertaining to President Sisi and his wife Intisar Ali. However, the actor did not provide any pieces of evidence for his allegations against the army.

According to Ali's videos, the Egyptian military has been spending huge sums of money on facilities that "do not provide any returns to the ordinary Egyptian citizen, including for example the construction of hotels and houses for President Sisi and his family in non-transparent and unaccountable operations."

Funded by Muslim Brothers

The complaint against Waked submitted by lawyer Tariq Mahmoud to the Attorney-General (listed as number 6325 for the year 2019) alleged that Waked was allying "with the terrorist [Muslim] Brotherhood organization, and is inciting foreign states and entities against the Egyptian state and its institutions, as well as participating in all circumspect activities and conferences which incite against Egypt and its leadership, and is receiving financial funding from the terrorist Brotherhood organization to commit crimes against Egypt."

Media outlets close to the regime further reported the lawyer to have stated that Waked "since his escape from Egypt and throwing himself into the arms of the international organization of the Brotherhood and enemy parties of Egypt, has been committing several crimes against Egypt while strengthening himself by enlisting the help of foreign parties to harm the supreme interests of the country, and is seeking to ally with that terrorist organization to bring down Egypt and its institutions, and to prevent the state's constitutional and legislative institutions from doing their work while seeking to undermine the stability and internal security of the country."

Mahmoud continued that there were "enemy intelligence agencies of Egypt that have embraced the escaped actor and have enlisted him to conspire against the Egyptian state, affirming that the international organization of the Brotherhood hosts press conferences for the actor which are transmitted by their media outlets which support the terrorism directed against Egypt, to attack Egypt and its leadership and to incite against it and distort the image of the Egyptian state abroad."

Accordingly, the lawyer called in his complaint for the opening of "urgent and immediate investigations of the occurrences in the submitted complaint, to place Amr Waked on the watch-list of potential arrivals, to issue an arrest warrant against Waked for his commitment of the crimes listed in the complaint, and to notify the Interpol to place Waked's name on the Red Notices list for his arrest and handover to the Egyptian authorities, and his referral to an urgent criminal trial."

The Actor Who Criticized the President

It should be noted that Waked is an Egyptian actor who appeared in many important cinematic works both inside and outside of Egypt. His opposition to the current regime began in 2013, when he refused to give President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a "mandate" to face "possible terrorism" in Egypt – the request that Sisi made of Egyptians in 2013 which preceded the crackdown on the overthrown President Morsi's supporters. Waked would depart Egypt after Sisi's call for a 'mandate'.

In March 2019, the Egyptian actor revealed that persons inside of Egypt alerted him that he would face many problems in the event of his return to the country, writing on his official Twitter account at the time: "I'm abroad in the first place, and they informed me that if I returned to Egypt bad things will happen to me, and that everything is prepared at the stroke of a pen, and I believe them to be honest."

Since Sisi's presidency started in 2014, Waked continued to write tweets in opposition to the president, as well as adopting the cause of defending detainees inside Egyptian prisons. Waked's actions would invite a huge assault against him by the Egyptian regime's media, accusing him of being an agent that worked for the Muslim Brotherhood – a charge he has always and continues to deny.

Indeed, in the context of the smear campaign against Waked, the governmental 'Horiyti' magazine published a photoshopped cover in April 2019 combining Waked with another opposition super star Khaled Abol Naga, in a scene whereby they embraced each other in a swimming pool – alluding to a homosexual relationship between them, with a broad headline reading: "Agents and Other Things."


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