The Biden administration announced it would cancel $130 million of military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns, Reuters reported, citing U.S. State Department officials.
According to the report, the measure is seen as a “rare punishment of a key ally, even though it fell short of expectations of rights groups.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in September said $130m in aid would be withheld unless Egypt addressed “specific human-rights-related conditions”, which activists say included the release of certain individuals deemed political prisoners, by the end of January, the report said.
It went on to note that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government has “overseen a crackdown on dissent that has tightened in recent years.”
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (C) speaks with children as they stand between the human-headed sphinxes at a section along the 2700-metre-long Avenue of the Sphinxes (Sphinx dromos) in Egypt’s southern city of the same name on November 25, 2021. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty)
“While the Secretary has not made the final decision, if there are not major developments over the next couple of days, the Secretary will re-program the $130 million to other national security priorities as he previewed in September,” a State Department official was quoted as saying.
The announcement comes after the Biden administration last week approved the $2.5 billion sale of transport aircraft and air defence radar systems, and while U.S. officials are maintaining that the two are unrelated, critics have said it shows inconsistency on the part of the administration.
The decision to withhold the $130 million is “not much more than a slap on the wrist given those handouts,” said Sarah Holewinski, Washington director at Human Rights Watch.
U.S. officials said the sale, which includes 12 C-130 J Super Hercules transport aircraft, directly impacts U.S. security interests.
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