Egyptian minister faces criticism after threatening to behead dissidents abroad

During a speech in the Canadian city of Toronto this week, Makram draw her finger across her neck in a throat-cutting gesture as she described the punishment for those who criticize Cairo’s military-backed government.

“Anyone who says anything about our country, what happens to them?” Makram asked at the event with expatriates.

“We cut,” she said during her speech, raising her hand to her throat, prompting laughter.

Mohamed Kamel, a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy, told Radio-Canada on Tuesday that the remarks were “very dangerous and unacceptable.”

“It reminds us of the Jamal Khashoggi case,” he said, referring to Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, last year.

During her speech Makram said, “Egypt embraces all of us and brings us closer together. Wherever we go, it stays in our hearts and we can’t tolerate anything said about it outside.”

Her speech went viral on Arabic-language media, leading her to defend herself, insisting that the gesture was not meant as violent.

Her ministry’s Twitter account on Tuesday quoted her as being surprised by the “misinterpretation” of her statements.

The ministry said “I cut his throat” is a “common expression in the Egyptian dialect which signifies when someone is very angry.”

“The state is protecting its children and not threatening them,” Makram said via her ministry.

The country, the minister added, was facing “a fierce war and groups that are seeking to divide and minimize achievements and successes.”

She was apparently referring to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, which has been banned in the country.

In a statement to The Independent, Amr Darrag, a former minister of the toppled Muslim Brotherhood government, censured Makram’s remarks as “unacceptable.”

 “They are trying to silence those who live abroad who enjoy the freedom of expression that is denied to their fellow citizens living in Egypt,” he said.

“Just like the case of Jamal Khashoggi, this is a message that even if you’re abroad, you cannot speak up. And if you do, you face the gravest of consequences,” he said.

Egypt turned into ‘open-air prison’ due to harsh crackdownAmnesty International accuses Egypt of mounting a crackdown on freedom of expression in the country.

“They are trying to silence those who live abroad who enjoy the freedom of expression that is denied to their fellow citizens living in Egypt,” he said.

“Just like the case of Jamal Khashoggi, this is a message that even if you’re abroad, you cannot speak up. And if you do, you face the gravest of consequences,” he said.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has faced international condemnation for a crackdown on civil society groups since he took power in 2014, a year after a military coup toppled the country’s first-ever democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Morsi, a senior figure in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood organization, was elected as Egypt’s president after the 2011 revolution that ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Since his ouster by the military, Morsi had been serving a 20-year prison term on charges of ordering the arrest and torture of protesters, a 25-year jail term on charges of passing intelligence to Qatar, and a three-year term for insulting the judiciary.