The closure of a popular Syrian-owned restaurant in the east Alexandria neighborhood of Asafra over what an employee in the Alexandria governor's office claimed to be "health code violations" has renewed fears among Syrians of tighter restrictions on their businesses in Egypt. It has also sparked a new wave of hostility toward Syrian refugees, raising concerns about their personal safety in a country that has largely been accommodating to them.
In mid-August, security forces sealed the doors of the Bride of Damascus (Aroos Dimashq) after a resident in the same building filed a lawsuit against its owner, complaining that gas cylinders in the restaurant's ground-floor kitchen posed an imminent danger to the building's occupants and to the neighborhood in general. The complainant's elderly mother had earlier appealed to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to take punitive measures against the restaurant owner and posted a video on Twitter showing the Syrian man dismissing her objections and telling her to "get me a man to talk to."
