Merkel, however, had nothing to say about the 2,600 Egyptians who had already been murdered, mostly by the Sisi regime, without so much as a trial; or the more than 41,000 Egyptians arrested, indicted and sentenced according to Egyptian rights groups, including 300 lawyers, between July 2013 and May 2014; or Sisi’s use of the draconian 2002 Law on Associations to refuse civil society organisations’ applications for legal registration, and to then freeze their assets, block their funding, confiscate their property, and even shut them down wholesale.