Several month has passed by as Egypt’s new military government has continued to act like nothing has happened. Now the Sisi government has set Jan 4 2014 as start of a two-day referendum of the revised constitution. While it its expected to be approved nonetheless, The amount of turnout will provide to be an unofficial poll of the support for the military government.

The Constitution despite giving many new rights to citizens also supports the same institutions that ruled the country with an iron grip in the mubarak era. One of these groups include the police who remain the main instigators in the peaceful sit-ins which have resulted in the death of many people. This negative development have not done anything to deter foreign governments from continuing their relationships with Egypt as we will see later on.

EU Grants

In other surprising news, The EU has approved a grant of nearly $380 million dollars for Egypt to improve its public services among which increase employment among the youth and women. Head of the European Delegation to Egypt James Moran, also shot down rumors of suspension of aid to Egypt, which nonetheless confirms that many countries are still continuing to do business with Egypt as if its like any other day. While the US has been relatively quiet on the Egypt front due to developing situations with Iran Nuclear deal, Spat with Israel and Saudi Arabia over the consequences of any Iranian diplomacy, it looks as if the US is cautious towards publicly addressing any issues regarding Egypt but there are no signs that it will halt any form of economic or other relations with Egypt.

Gulf support

Egypt has continued to receive help from gulf countries, who unsurprisingly  do not support any form of a functioning democracy in their backyard due to insecurities of another round of the Arab spring engulfing the region. While the Arab spring was a call to action for economic, political and state reforms, Many gulf countries who have authoritarian rule have done all they can to stop this change from coming into fruition, best example of this is of course Egypt.

Mass Killings

Egypt has yet to take any actions or properly investigated killing of protesters by security forces in various situations.  Nearly 2000 protestors and security forces have been killed on several occasions but no one from the military have been charged or even found of any wrongdoings. The Sisi government has failed to protect its minorities and has shown clear cut bias towards the minorities when it sentenced three Coptic Christians to long prison terms for the death of Muslims in the sectarian clashes despite the death of at least five Coptic Christians in the same clashes. The military government has used the opportunities of these sectarian clashes to play the blame game on extremists despite doing nothing to stop the violence and exacerbate the already fragile relations between different sectarian groups in Egypt. Egypt has used the cover of rule of law to deter protests and sit ins and has arrested many activists regardless of gender and sentenced them to long period of time in jail in sham prosecutions.

Ironically above all, former president Mohamed Morsi is standing trial on charges on Terrorism and conspiracy.