30 Unknown Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

4 February 2019, 11:35 am EST By Ruby Karnick

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the sixth and current President of Egypt, have been labeled by some media reports as a very strongman and a dictator, in comparison to Egypt's former presidents. Here are some interesting facts about the Egyptian politician:

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi was born on November 19, 1954 in Old Cairo, Egypt, to Said Hussein Khalili al-Sisi and Soad Mohamed.
During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, he was the youngest member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), where he served as the director of military intelligence and reconnaissance department.
El-Sisi is the first Egyptian president in the country's history to attend Christmas Mass, when he attended and gave a speech at the Coptic Orthodox Christmas service in Cairo in January 2015 calling for unity and wishing the Christians a merry Christmas.
According to the Human Rights Watch, his regime used torture and enforced disappearances against his political opponents and criminal suspects.
One of the challenges of his government was the Egypt's energy crisis, which continued to grown in the first few months of his office. He promised to partially solve the economic crisis and energy contracts were placed as a top priority in the Egypt Economic Development Conference in March 2015.
He has been named by The Economist as "the most pro-Israeli Egyptian leader ever," as the country's relationship with Israel is said to have improved significantly, since the removal of Morsi's government.
He has seven siblings, along with whom he studied at the nearby library at al-Azhar University. His father had a wooden antiques shop for tourists in the historic bazaar of Khan el-Khalili.
He graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy, following which he held various command positions in the Egyptian Armed Forces and served as Egypt's military attaché in Riyadh.
He enrolled in the British Command and Staff College to continue his military career in the year 1992. He went to the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the year 2006.
He started his military career as a military officer in 1977 serving in the mechanized infantry, specializing in anti-tank warfare and mortar warfare.

He eventually became the Commander of the Northern Military Region-Alexandria in 2008 and then Director of Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance.
He replaced Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi as the head of the Egyptian Armed Forces, under the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on august 12, 2012. He was also promoted to the rank of colonel general.
With this, El-Sisi also took over the post of Minister of Defense and Military Production in the Qandil Cabinet, and was described in the official website of FJP as a "Defense minister with revolutionary taste."
As the Director of Military intelligence and reconnaissance, he pledged to Amnesty International on June 26, 2011, that the Egyptian army will no longer subject female detainees to "virginity tests." Just months before, he not only confirmed that the forced "virginity tests" were performed, but also defended the practice.
In August 2014, President Sisi initiated a new Suez Canal, which would double the capacity of the existing canal from 49 to 97 ships a day, increasing the revenue by 259 percent. The new canal, cost around 60 billion Egyptian-pounds ($8.4 billion), was inaugurated on schedule on 6 August 2015.
Following Adly Mansour's taking over as the interim president, he was sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister on July 16, 2013. He was also promoted to the rank of field marshal on January 27, 2014.
During a speech at a military parade on July 24, 2013, he called for mass demonstrations to grant the Egyptian military and police a "mandate" to crack down on terrorism.
Following the August 2013 Cairo sit-ins dispersal that led to the deaths of 638 people and over 3,994 injured, American magazine Time's Lee Smith wrote "Egypt's new leader is unfit to rule," referring to El-Sisi, and not the interim president Adly Mansour who was the actual head of government at the time.
He met with the US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on April 3, 2017, marking the first visit by an Egyptian leader to the White House in seven years.
His announcement of the overthrow of Morsi government was met with celebrations from the anti-Morsi demonstrators, who carried posters of el-Sisi. Thousands of Egyptians changed their social network profile pictures to pictures of El-Sisi.

El-Sisi made an African tour, his first foreign visit since taking office a short visit to Algeria, seeking support to counter Islamist militancy in North Africa.
He was named as the "Time Person of the Year" in Time magazine's annual reader poll on December 6, 2013. Blogs shared his pictures, and columns, op-eds, television shows and interviews discussed the "new idol of the Nile valley" in the Egyptian mainstream media.
When he said that he had no desire o run for presidency, "Kamel Gemilak" (Finish Your Favor) and "El-Sisi for President" campaigns were started in an effort to gather signatures to press El-Sisi, while even non-Egyptians announced their support for his running for president.
He confirmed on March 26, 2014 that he would run for the President in the next presidential election. Immediately popular hastags supporting as well as against his presidential bid were started.
He won over 96 percent of the votes counted in the presidential election which took place between May 26, 2014 and May 28, 2014. He was sworn-in as President on June 8, 2014, and was celebrated with festivals held nationwide.
On September 23, 2015, he pardoned 100 prisoners, including the Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, who were arrested in December 2013 after being accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
During his oath of office the deputy head of the constitutional court, Maher Sami described him as a "rebel soldier" and a "revolutionary hero."
He introduced the Suez Canal Area Development Project, involving the development of five new seaports, a new industrial zone west of the Gulf of Suez, seven new tunnels between Sinai and the Egyptian home land, a new Ismailia city, huge fish farms, and a technology valley within Ismailia.
In the Egypt Economic Development Conference, he announced a plan to build a new city near Cairo, which will serve as the new capital of the county. The new city is approximately midway between Cairo and Suez, is yet to be formally named.
Sisi met his maternal cousin Entissar Amer while studying at local army-run secondary school, where their relationship started. The duo got married upon his graduation from the Egyptian Military Academy in the year 1977, and have three sons and a daughter.