Daily News (Egypt)
17 May 2015
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- Egypt Bans Ultras in Bid to Break Anti-government Protests
Egypt Bans Ultras in Bid to Break Anti-government Protests
An Egyptian court has banned militant football fan groups or ultras as terrorist organisations in a bid to break the backbone of anti-government protests.
The ruling pushes further underground groups that often offer despairing youth a rare opportunity to vent their pent-up anger and frustration peacefully.
Ultras have for the past eight years been at the core of anti-government protest in Egypt. They have been the drivers of student protests in the last two years against the regime of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the general-turned-president who in 2013 toppled Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president.
… James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.
RSIS / Online
Last updated on 18/05/2015
