Anger in Egypt at US embassy intervention in the work of the Justice Ministry

Cairo expressed anger at US intervention in its internal affairs and threats to cut US aid to Egypt in response to the Egyptian-imposed travel ban of 6 American activists accused in the case of foreign funding of civil society organizations.
 
The People’s Assembly Speaker Saad El Katatny criticized the US ambassador’s intervention in the investigations of the Ministry of Justice as she sent a message to the minister on Tuesday, January 31 demanding the release of the accused Americans, and the Americans taking shelter at the US embassy in Cairo, and requesting that they be allowed to leave Egypt. Katatni said that what the US ambassador did is considered intervention in Egyptian internal affairs and is unacceptable. Egypt’s Justice Minister Adel Abdel Hameed announced that the US embassy in Cairo has made an official apology, through the US State Department, for intervening in the foreign funding investigations.

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High-ranking diplomatic sources in Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed to Quds Press resentment at the US stance toward Egyptian civil society organizations and American activists working in Egypt without permission, especially those organizations that insist on violating the law organizing the work of these organizations.
 
The sources expressed surprise at the US repeated intervention in Egyptian affairs using the “aid” rhetoric. “If they want to cut the aid, we have those who demand that it be stopped,” the source said, in reference to a broad Egyptian current that does not want US aid and calls for its halt on the grounds that it constitutes political pressure on Egyptians, who no longer accept US pressure especially after their revolution.
 
The sources noted that any US pressures or objections “won’t deter Cairo from taking the procedures necessary for preserving Egyptian interests, as long as those procedures are taken in the context of law and in light of judiciary supervision.”