Abdul El-Sayed linked to 2012 Egyptian media purge call

Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, has faced scrutiny following reports that he supported a media and police purge in Egypt in 2012.

According to reports from the Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed was one of 46 Egyptian-American community leaders who signed an Arabic-language statement on the Al-Ahram Gate news portal. The letter expressed support for the revolutionary decisions of then-President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and called for the president to “purge the media and the police as quickly as possible.”

The statement was issued shortly after Morsi granted himself expanded powers to manage civil unrest. Following the call for a purge, the Egyptian government implemented a crackdown on the press, which included the arrest of several reporters on charges such as “insulting Islam” and “insulting the president.” At the time of the signing, El-Sayed was a medical student at Columbia University.