Trump Welcomes 'Fantastic Guy,' Egyptian Autocrat el-Sissi to the White House

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi arrived to the White House Monday for a visit with U.S. president Donald Trump. The two men, perched on chairs in the Oval Office, shook hands and vowed to “fight terrorism” together.

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The first visit of Egyptian head of state to the White House prompted vocal condemnations — despite Washington having maintained cordial diplomatic ties with the general for the past few decades. But unlike Trump, President Barack Obama never awarded the autocrat a visit to the White House after he took power in 2013 after leading a coup ousting former President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Trump declared he is "very much behind" Sisi, and even called the Egyptian leader a "fantastic guy” last year on the campaign trail. In his reign as president, he has ordered mass extrajudicial killings and overseen the detention and torture of hundreds of protesters and journalists, a thousand of whom were killed in a span of 48 hours after he initially seized power.

“You have a great friend and ally in the U.S. and me,” Trump said to Sisi before the two shook hands in the Oval Office, reported The Independent.

Ahead of the visit, demonstrators held a rally at the Washington Monument, just blocks away, where an impersonator wearing an oversized mask of Sisi was part of the protest calling on Trump to confront Sisi about human rights abuses.

"We're giving US$1.5 billion to an autocrat who has killed thousands of people, who has imprisoned tens of thousands of people, including Americans," Mohamed Soltan, a U.S. citizen who was jailed in Egypt for nearly two years, told Al Jazeera at the protest. "We're here to shed light on their plight."

Reprieve, a U.K.-based human rights group, issued a statement Monday commenting on the visit and calling on Trump to confront Sisi.

“As President Sisi visits the White House, his government is overseeing a campaign of repression … thousands of people – including protesters, journalists, bloggers and others — languish in horrific prison conditions, with many being tortured,” the group stated. “Hundreds still face the death penalty in unfair mass trials that make a mockery of due process. Among them are people who were arrested as children, like Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa. President Trump must urge Sisi to end these appalling abuses, and release Ibrahim and the many like him.”

But while many raise the motion that Trump is newly embracing Egypt’s authoritarian president, the general had been warmly embraced by U.S. presidents past — both Democrat and Republican.

Although former U.S. President Barack Obama blocked billions of dollars in various aid and assistance packages over concern of Sisi’s violation of human rights, his Secretary of State John Kerry visited the leader in Egypt last year. And in 2014, Kerry voiced strong support for Sisi, promising the continued flow of military aid.

That same year, former U.S. Democrat President Bill Clinton, along with former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, also met with the former military leader.