German politician calls on gov’t to cancel el-Sissi’s upcoming visit to Berlin

A member of the German Parliament of the Green Party, Franziska Brantner called on Germany to consider cancelling Egptian President el-Sissi's visit to Berlin which was scheduled to take place on June 3. Similar calls came from the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC) in Egypt.

Franziska Brantnersaid on Monday in her website that "the death sentence issued against Morsi is another proof of the judicial arbitrariness in Egypt, and shows that the fundamental principles of the rule of the law are being trampled." She also urged the German government to take some step as in cancelling el-Sissi's upcoming visit.

Brantner said that the imprisonment of the democratically elected Mohammed Morsi for months in solitary confinement conveyed the impression that the decision was "politically motivated."

Similar calls came from the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC), as the council urged the German government to consider el-Sissi's human rights violations, curtailing of civil liberties and the issuance of mass death sentences, and cancel the planned visit, as reported on Tuesday by the Middle East Monitor.

Maha Azzam, the Head of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council stated in her open letter: "We believe that inviting and receiving General el-Sissi is politically counterproductive and plays into the narrative of those who claim that world governments prefer that the Middle East remains governed by autocracies, with no regard for the rights of citizens in that part of the world."

In September of last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had invited el-Sissi to a first of its kind state visit to Germany.