The Biden administration’s decision to obligate the $320 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Foreign Military Financing (FMF) conditioned on human rights benchmarks is another betrayal to its declared commitment to human rights and to the rule of law. This administration came into office claiming that human rights would be “central to the U.S.-Egypt bilateral relationship.” Instead, for the first time in his term, President Biden is moving to provide all of the $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt despite the ongoing human rights crisis in the country and the Government of Egypt’s failure to make clear and consistent human rights progress in line with U.S. law.
This decision is yet another tragic example of the administration failing to faithfully uphold and enforce U.S. law, just as it has with the case of Israel. The administration has chosen to use a national security waiver on $225 million of the $320 million, bypassing conditions on critical rights reforms such as “[strengthening] the rule of law” and protecting “freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.” In addition, Secretary Blinken is releasing the remaining $95 million by certifying that over the past year, the Egyptian government made “clear and consistent progress in releasing political prisoners, providing detainees with due process of law, and preventing the intimidation and harassment of American citizens.”
Over the past year, however, Egyptian security forces have continued to arbitrarily arrest individuals, including journalists, human rights defenders, and political opponents, at two-times the rate of releases. It has also continued to unlawfully hold political prisoners in horrific conditions inside the country’s prisons. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi claims to be reforming pretrial detention practices with a draft law to replace the country’s current Criminal Procedure Code. But, Egyptian human rights organizations, the Egyptian Lawyers Syndicate, and the Egyptian Press Syndicate have all raised serious concerns with the text. The proposed law would obliterate key rule of law and due process protections, normalize warrantless searches, restrict the ability of lawyers to defend their clients, criminalize trial coverage by journalists and civil society organizations, among other alarming impacts. Though the draft superficially decreases pretrial detention maximums, it does not address the issues at the core of the country’s pretrial detention crisis, including case rotation (recycling) through which detainees are kept in indefinite detention, and the continued arrests of individuals for exercising their fundamental freedoms.
In addition, rather than holding free and fair presidential elections in December 2023, Egypt jailed opposition candidates who sought to run for the presidency, as well as their campaign staff, and bribed, coerced, and forced mobilization during the election. Marginalized groups, including religious minorities and refugees, also continue to face violations. Egyptian authorities have arbitrarily arrested and forcibly deported Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers back to Sudan. Despite promises to the contrary, the Egyptian government has made no progress in amending the personal status law to remedy discrimination against women.
Furthermore, two months ago, a U.S. court found that Egyptian officials bribed the former Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in an effort to corrupt a national security decision. Instead of holding Egypt to account for this egregious foreign interference into U.S. policymaking, President Biden is rewarding the Egyptian government.
We therefore call on Congress, as it has done the last two years, to fulfill its oversight duty, and block all $320 million conditioned on human rights benchmarks. At minimum, Congress should block the $95 million, which the administration baselessly and unjustifiably determined that the Egyptian government has made “clear and consistent progress” in releasing detainees and providing them due process. We further call on Congress to significantly strengthen the conditionality language for FY25 appropriations and increase the amount of FMF to Egypt conditioned on human rights reforms. Taking such actions are important and necessary steps to demonstrate to the Egyptian government that Congress remains concerned about the dire human rights situation and that the U.S-Egypt relationship can only improve when the human rights situation systematically improves. Congress should make clear to the Biden administration that this decision violates U.S. law, undermines U.S. national security, and further erodes the standing of the United States.
Signed,
The Middle East Democracy Center (MEDC)
The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)
