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Rare Protests Against Egypt’s Leader Erupt in Cairo and Elsewhere

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Anti-government protests against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt erupted late Friday night, calling for his removal as he traveled for the United Nations General Assembly meeting the following week. The protest is a rarity in Mr. el-Sisi’s tenure, as the president has curtailed free speech and punished dissent with prison sentences since taking office in 2013.CreditCredit...Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Rare protests against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi erupted in central Cairo and several smaller Egyptian cities on Friday night as hundreds of young people, responding to online calls for demonstrations against government corruption, chanted “Down with Sisi” and “Leave now.”

The protests, although small, occurred as Mr. el-Sisi flew to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week — and they were unusual for taking place at all.

Mr. el-Sisi, who came to power in a 2013 military takeover, has cemented his hold through harsh repression that has silenced critics, curtailed free speech and ended any semblance of democratic politics. Even the mildest dissent has been met with harsh punishments and long prison sentences.

On Friday, the police fired tear gas to disperse some groups, but other protesters continued to clash with the police into the early hours of Saturday.

At least four people were arrested near Tahrir Square, where Egyptians gathered to oust President Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring in 2011, said the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, which monitors the status of detainees. Another watchdog group, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, said it had documented 36 arrests in Cairo and other cities.

Human rights groups regularly denounce Mr. el-Sisi as one of the harshest leaders in the Middle East. Packed prisons are filled with political detainees, hundreds of websites have been blocked, and the country’s press has been largely suborned by the security services.

Still, Mr. el-Sisi has met with little resistance from Western allies, including President Trump, who last week referred to him as “my favorite dictator.”

The protests on Friday were prompted by a call from Mohamed Ali, a building contractor who had worked with the military and has been appearing in Facebook videos alleging widespread squandering of public funds under Mr. el-Sisi and his close aides.

In one recent video, recorded by Mr. Ali from Spain where he lives in self-imposed exile, he called on the defense minister, Mohamed Zaki, to arrest Mr. el-Sisi. He urged Egyptians to take to the streets and demand the president’s ouster on Friday.

Hundreds of young Cairo residents heeded that call, flooding the streets on Friday evening after a soccer match between two popular Egyptian teams. Witnesses and video recordings suggested the protests were not centrally organized, appearing instead to come from spontaneous gatherings of angry young people, many from working-class backgrounds, chanting anti-Sisi slogans.

In one place, protesters denounced Mr. el-Sisi as “the thief.”

Pro-government television stations tried to play down the turbulence. Broadcasting from Tahrir Square, one anchor said that a small group had gathered to take selfies before leaving the scene. Other channels insisted the situation was calm.

But videos posted online showed that limited protests also erupted in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, in Suez on the Red Sea, and in Mahalla el-Kubra, a town of textile factories 70 miles north of Cairo that is known for its labor activism.

Limited anti-Sisi protests occurred in Cairo in 2016 after the president ceded two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia. But since then, life has gotten far harder for ordinary Egyptians.

Food prices have soared as Mr. el-Sisi has introduced a diet of harsh austerity, slashing subsidies to fuel and some foodstuffs, as part of a bailout from the International Monetary Fund that he took to solve a currency crash in 2016.

Egypt’s official statistics agency reported in July that 33 percent of Egyptians were living under the poverty line after years of austerity measures, up from 28 percent in 2015 and 17 percent in 2000.

Mr. el-Sisi was re-elected president in 2018 following a flawed vote in which he faced no serious opposition. A referendum this year on constitutional changes to extend his rule was passed. But at least three million Egyptians voted against the measure.

Previously, Egypt’s security services have reacted to much smaller protests by ratcheting up repression, usually in the form of mass arrests that have seen critics cast into jail for months or years. Analysts anticipated a similar reaction to Friday’s protests.

Nonetheless, some said it appeared that a corner, however small, had been turned for Mr. el-Sisi.

The protests on Friday night were a “first for the Sisi regime,” said Prof. Rabab el-Mahdi, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. The relatively restrained police response “could be a decision to let off steam,” she said. “That was typical of the Mubarak regime. But it is not typical of Sisi.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Rare Protests Against Egypt’s Leader Erupt in Cairo. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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