2019 Egyptian protests

The 2019 Egyptian protests were mass protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta and other cities on 20, 21 and 27 September 2019 in which the protestors called for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to be removed from power. Security forces responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and, as of 23 October 2019, 4300 arbitrary arrests had been made, based on data from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, among which 111 were minors according to Amnesty International and the Belady Foundation. Prominent arrestees included human rights lawyer Mahienour el-Massry, journalist and former leader of the Constitution Party Khaled Dawoud and two professors of political science at Cairo University, Hazem Hosny and Hassan Nafaa. The wave of arrests was the biggest in Egypt since Sisi formally became president in 2014.

Human Rights Watch called for all those arrested for peacefully expressing their opinions to be released immediately. Amnesty International described the Sisi government being "shaken to its core" by the 20–21 September protests and that the authorities had "launched a full-throttle clampdown to crush demonstrations and intimidate activists, journalists and others into silence". Two thousand people, including Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) representatives, protested in Khartoum on 26 September in support of Waleed Abdelrahman Hassan, a Sudanese anti-Islamist student detained by Egyptian authorities, who gave a forced confession on MBC Masr television. The SPA stated, "the era when Sudanese citizens were humiliated inside or outside their country has gone and will never return". The Sudanese Foreign Ministry summoned the Egyptian ambassador and Waleed Abdelrahman Hassan was freed on 2 October 2019.

A massive police clampdown took place around Tahrir Square and across Egypt on 27 September, together with pro-Sisi rallies of government employees organised by the National Security Agency, and anti-Sisi protests on Warraq Island on the Nile, in Giza, in Helwan, in Qus, and in the Luxor, Aswan Minya and Sohag Governorates. On 3 November 2019, parliamentarian Ahmed Tantawi made online and parliamentary proposals for Sisi to step down in 2022 rather than stand for re-election in 2024.