COP27 has some of the most authoritarian security of any of the COP summits. Set in the walled resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, it is surrounded by 36km of concrete and razor wire, overseen by new surveillance technologies and a “security observatory”.
Protesters are also restricted to a distant site in the desert. Protest has been effectively prohibited in Egypt since the 2013 coup when the retired military general, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew his country’s democratically elected Islamist President, Mohammed Morsi, amid mass protests against his rule. Donald Trump once referred to the Egyptian president as his “favourite dictator”.
