Democratic senator blames Egypt press crackdown on US military aid decision

ByTom Bateman

State department correspondent

A top Democratic senator has blamed a crackdown on independent journalism in Egypt on a decision by the Trump administration to waive human rights conditions on US military funding to the country.

Chris Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused the US government of "abandoning" the Egyptian people after it lifted restrictions relating to more than $300m of defence assistance.

Over the last month a series of arrests has taken place of journalists at two of the few remaining independent news outlets in Egypt, where newspapers and TV stations are closely controlled by the authorities.

The US State Department told the BBC it waived conditions on a portion of military aid to Egypt in September due to the country's "importance to US national security interests".

Murphy, speaking at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington this week, said he was in no doubt the two were linked.

"The minute that money was released, the crackdown began in an absolutely devastating way," he said.

On Tuesday a court in Cairo ordered the closure of the news website Madr Masa and fined its editor-in-chief Lina Attalah in what Amnesty International called "a crushing blow to press freedom".

Earlier this month, authorities arrested six journalists at the independent fact-checking platform Matsda2sh and charged them with belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Cairo has remained a close regional ally of the US despite what human rights groups say are widespread abuses under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government, including torture and enforced disappearances.

Sisi denies there are political prisoners in Egypt. He has previously said stability and security are paramount, adding authorities have promoted rights by trying to provide basic needs such as jobs and housing.

Washington sends Egypt £1.3bn ($1.73bn) per year, making it one of the world's biggest recipients of US military assistance.

US law allows up to £320m of the funding to be withheld, conditioned on Egypt meeting democracy and human rights requirements. But these restrictions can be waived by the administration on national security grounds.

In September, Secretary of State Marco Rubio waived human rights conditions on $320m of military aid in light of Egypt's role since the launch of the US war with Iran, according to a letter addressed to various Congressional committees. Egypt assisted negotiations between the US and Iran.

Exercising the waiver authority was "essential" for the US-Egypt relationship, "particularly in light of Egypt's helpful role following Operation Epic Fury," according to the September 4 memo seen by Reuters which bore Rubio's signature.

Asked by the BBC about the move in light of this month's arrests of journalists, the State Department said the waiver was "due to Egypt's importance to US national security interests, the concrete security cooperation Egypt provides to the United States, and the need to maintain that cooperation to address regional security challenges".

It added it maintained dialogue with Cairo on a "full range of issues" but would "not comment on private diplomatic conversations".

Rubio's move followed a similar decision by the Biden administration in 2024, when then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken waived human rights conditions to grant the full military aid allocation to Egypt as the US sought Cairo's role in mediating between Israel and Hamas in the war in Gaza.

Under Biden prior to 2024, the US withheld portions of the annual military allocation over Egypt's human rights record.

Murphy, who chairs a congressional committee on the Middle East and counterterrorism, said he had been a critic of both the Biden and Trump administrations over the issue.

"To the extent that there was any glimmer left of political speech in Egypt, it is gone for one proximate reason: The United States government abandoned the people of Egypt and decided to remove all conditions on our funding," Murphy told the MEI.

"Any hope of a true, meaningful political opposition rebirthing in Egypt has been shattered by this decision," he added.

US military aid to Cairo began after the 1978 Camp David Accords and the peace treaty that followed between Egypt and Israel. Successive administrations have viewed the world's most populous Arab country as a critical US ally in the region.

The group Reporters Without Borders describes Egypt, external as one of the world's biggest jailers of journalists.

The conviction of Lina Attalah and the closure of Madr Masr marked an unprecedented escalation in repression of press freedoms in Egypt, according to Timothy E Kaldas, Deputy Director of The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington DC-based think tank.

He said both the US and European Union had been prioritising their strategic relations with Egypt over human rights and the rule of law in the country.

"It's been fostering a sense of impunity on the part of the Egyptian authorities that we're seeing play out," he told the BBC.

"Egypt is getting signals from both sides of the Atlantic that human rights and the rule of law are no longer a priority, and they're testing the limits of that."

He added: "The fact that they're not getting more robust pushback reinforces the wrong message."

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