Egypt to kick off 'national dialogue' next month led by head of press syndicate

The Egyptian national dialogue, initiated end of April by president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, will kick off during the first week of July and will be led by the head of the Journalists' Syndicate Diayaa Rashwan, local news outlets reported on Wednesday, citing a statement by the dialogue's administration.

Next month's dialogue is expected to gather representatives of all political groups, but will probably exclude the Muslim Brotherhood, designated a "terrorist" group in 2014.

The announcement also comes days after an Egyptian court sentenced dozens of people to prison in relation to the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in in 2014, in which hundreds were massacred by security forces during a brutal crackdown on protesters. 

The dialogue's administration has also assigned Mahmoud Fawzy, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, to be the head of the technical secretariat of the dialogue.

The administration announced inviting "the largest possible number of representatives of the Egyptian social classes and institutions to conduct an effective national dialogue."

"This aims to ensure that all the categories are represented in the societal dialogue and to guarantee access to all regions of the republic in coordination with all partisan and youth political currents," the statement read.

Sisi called for holding the dialogue during the "Egyptian family iftar" banquet during Ramadan that brought together almost all political fronts on April 26.

Rights groups estimate that some 60,000 political prisoners are being held in Egypt.