Washington Post to Obama: ‘Do not reward Egypt for torturing innocents’

The editorial board of the Washington Post called for the American President Barack Obama not to “reward” Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi for his violations against Egyptians, their freedom and economic and social lives.

“Disappearance, torture and extrajudicial killings have become shockingly common under the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi,” Thursday’s editorial stated, highlighting violations reported by Cairo-based human rights group, El-Nadeem.

“There were 464 documented cases of abductions by security forces in 2015, at least 676 cases of torture, and almost 500 deaths of detainees,” the editorial said El-Nadeem reported.

“The abuses have largely been ignored by Egypt’s Western allies. But on Jan. 25, a 28-year-old Italian PhD student researching trade unions, Giulio Regeni, disappeared in Cairo. His torture-scarred body was discovered dumped in a roadside ditch nine days later.”

“The case made headlines across Europe and prompted some long-overdue scrutiny of Al-Sisi regime’s appalling human rights record. On March 10, the European Parliament overwhelmingly called on governments to cease arms sales and security assistance to Egypt,” the paper said.

According to the editorial, the EU parliament said: “The student’s murder ‘follows a long list of enforced disappearances,’ as well as mass arrests and sweeping repression of free assembly and speech.”

“Respect for human rights should be the basis of our relations with Egypt,” the paper quoted activists saying, adding, “not least because its brutal repression is spawning extremism and pushing stability in Egypt out of reach. Instead, the Obama administration is moving in the opposite direction.”

“In requesting another $1.3 billion in military aid for Cairo in next year’s budget, it has asked Congress to eliminate conditioning that has tied 15 per cent of the aid to the government’s human rights record.”

It also mentioned that the US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has spent much of his tenure claiming that Al-Sisi is “restoring democracy,” acknowledged in congressional hearings last month that there had been a “deterioration” in freedom there.

According to the editorial, Kerry said that despite the disturbing realities on the ground, Al-Sisi’s abuses must be “balanced” against his fight of “Islamist extremism.”

But the editorial asked: “But how could that ‘balance’ derive from removing all consideration of human rights from funding for Egypt’s armed forces?” It also said that the language of the US Administration sends “a message of impunity for any and all abuses [carried out by Al-Sisi regime.]”

It called this “a particularly dangerous time to offer such a free pass.”

“We have argued for some time that Al-Sisi’s regime is incapable of stabilising Egypt. Now even its former defenders in the civilian political elite are turning against it as its crimes mount and the economy flounders. For the Obama administration to hand Cairo a blank check now would be foolhardy. Congress should prevent it.”

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