American Scholar Refused Entry To Egypt

An American researcher, critical of the ouster of President Morsi last year and the Egyptian political development in recent years, was refused entry into the country on Friday at Cairo International Airport while attempting to attend a conference on Egypt's political future.

Michele Dunne, a senior researcher for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US diplomat serving in Cairo, followed the invitation of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Affairs to be the only critical researcher in an invitee list of 20 mostly Egyptian experts. Due to her classification as an "American activist," Dunne was denied, held for six hours and had to board a flight back to Frankfurt in the early hours of Saturday. Following the question why she was refused entry to Cairo, Dunne has stated in a phone interview she got the response "No reason, Madame, you cannot enter Egypt anymore."

According to the Council for Foreign Relations, neither the Morsi nor Mubarak administration ever refused Western scholars entry to the country. The CFR therefore calls the incident "a new low." The incident follows a group of delegates of the Human Rights Watch being denied entry in August and criticism of the governments unjust treatment of non-governmental organisations.

Twitter was ablaze with criticism of the refusal. Since she was invited to open a dialogue with those who do not "understand Egyptian conditions," Ameen Shalabi, the executive manager of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs now fears more criticism from Dunne and the Carnegie Endowment. Dunne took to Twitter, as well as many others, to harshly criticize the decision. 

Curious to see what @AmbassadorRice and @JohnKerry will say about treatment of @MicheleDDunne, a distinguished former State & NSC official?

— Robert Danin (@robertdanin) December 13, 2014

Curious to see what @AmbassadorRice and @JohnKerry will say about treatment of @MicheleDDunne, a distinguished former State & NSC official?

— Robert Danin (@robertdanin) December 13, 2014

Although I have publicly disagreed with @MicheleDDunne , I disagree with preventing her from entering #egypt. Not a good democratic action.

— مايكل منير (ن) (@MichaelMeunier) December 14, 2014