Democratic senator blames Egypt press crackdown on Trump military aid decision

**Democratic senator blames Egypt press crackdown on Trump military aid decision**

A leading Democratic senator has said a crackdown on independent journalism in Egypt stems from the Trump administration’s choice to waive human rights conditions on US military aid to the country.

Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused the US government of “abandoning” the Egyptian people after it lifted restrictions tied to more than $300m of defence assistance.

Over the past month, journalists have been arrested at two of the few independent news outlets still operating in Egypt, where newspapers and TV channels are tightly controlled by the authorities.

The US State Department told the BBC that it waived conditions on part of the military aid to Egypt in September because of the country’s “importance to US national security interests”.

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

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

On Tuesday, a court in Cairo ordered the shutdown of the news website Madr Masa and fined its editor-in-chief Lina Attalah in what Amnesty International described as “a crushing blow to press freedom”.

Earlier this month, authorities detained 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 reply to a request for comment.

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

Sisi denies that Egypt has political prisoners. He has also said stability and security are the top priorities, adding that authorities have advanced rights by trying to provide basic needs such as jobs and housing.

Washington provides Egypt with £1.3bn ($1.73bn) a year, making it one of the largest recipients of US military aid in the world.

US law permits up to £320m of that funding to be withheld, subject to Egypt meeting democracy and human rights requirements. However, the administration can waive those restrictions 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 start of the US war with Iran, according to a letter sent to several Congressional committees. Egypt helped with negotiations between the US and Iran.

Using the waiver authority was “essential” to 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 and bearing Rubio’s signature.

When asked by the BBC about the decision 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 that it continued dialogue with Cairo on a “full range of issues” but would “not comment on private diplomatic conversations”.

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

Before 2024 under Biden, the US withheld portions of the annual military allocation because of Egypt’s human rights record.

Murphy, who chairs a congressional committee on the Middle East and counterterrorism, said he had criticised both the Biden and Trump administrations on 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 regarded the world’s most populous Arab country as a crucial US ally in the region.

The conviction of Lina Attalah and the closure of Madr Masr marked an unprecedented escalation in the 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 the European Union had been putting their strategic ties with Egypt ahead of 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.”