Ambassador Yasser Reda, Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States, published a Letter to the Editor in The Washington Post on Saturday, 16 June. In the letter, Ambassador Reda provides a counterbalance to recent Post coverage of Egypt and explains Egypt’s impartial judicial system as well as support for the rule of law.

Ambassador Reda writes, “Egypt’s 2014 Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and opinion…as in the United States, our judicial system offers the accused a fair and thorough opportunity to defend themselves.” The Ambassador adds: “No democracy, old or young, can function without the rule of law. Our government is reestablishing both the rights and the order that serve our citizens in a region otherwise fraught with turmoil.”

For more, please see the full letter to The Post below.

The Post Misrepresents Egypt

By: Ambassador Yasser Reda

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-post-misrepresents-egypt/2018/06/15/8e2d3bea-6f42-11e8-b4d8-eaf78d4c544c_story.html?utm_term=.1eebb237558a 

The June 2 editorial “The jailer running Egypt” misrepresented Egypt’s legal and judicial system. It discounted the hard work being done by President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi and the rest of Egypt’s government to establish a nation that is governed by rule of law and provides the security our citizens demand in the face of extremist threats and after a period of significant instability and hardship.

The editorial’s claim that arrests in Egypt are part of an extralegal “crackdown” could not be further from the truth. Egypt’s 2014 Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and opinion. But, as in the United States, our laws also protect against public incitement and other dangers. Egyptian law is blind regarding to whom these laws apply. And, as in the United States, our judicial system offers the accused a fair and thorough opportunity to defend themselves. Finally, as in the United States, it is irresponsible for observers to ignore details of individual cases and not to let those cases play out fully in the courts before reaching judgment on the rightness or wrongness of any arrest.

No democracy, old or young, can function without the rule of law. Our government is reestablishing both the rights and the order that serve our citizens in a region otherwise fraught with turmoil. The alternative — the chaos and lawlessness that have consumed much of the Middle East — would be far worse.