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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) speaks at a committee assembly after assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee on the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Craig Hudson/File Picture
By Matt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chairman of the U.S. Senate Overseas Relations Committee vowed on Saturday to dam navy support and arms gross sales to Egypt if it doesn’t take concrete steps to enhance human rights within the nation.
Democratic U.S. Senator Ben Cardin issued the menace in an announcement, saying “it’s crucial that we proceed to carry the federal government of Egypt, and all governments, accountable for his or her human rights violations.”
The announcement got here a day after U.S. Consultant Gregory Meeks, the rating Democrat on the Home of Representatives Overseas Affairs Committee, stated he had requested the State Division to pause a portion of navy support to Egypt conditioned on human rights standards.
The stepped-up strain follows the Sept. 22 federal indictment of the then-chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, tied partly to allegations that he had accepted bribes in change for wielding his affect to assist Egypt’s authorities.
Menendez denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not responsible.
The Egyptian embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Cardin’s announcement.
Cardin, who changed Menendez as head of the Senate panel, stated Egypt should present progress in efforts to speed up the discharge of political prisoners and “present house” for human rights defenders, civil society advocates, political opposition and impartial media.
“I intend to train absolutely the committee’s oversight duties and my authorities to dam future overseas navy funds in addition to sale of arms to the federal government of Egypt if it doesn’t take concrete, significant, and sustainable steps to enhance the human rights situations in its nation,” he stated.
Washington has lengthy supplied Egypt with massive quantities of navy and different support, ever for the reason that Arab world’s most populous nation signed a peace take care of neighboring Israel in 1979.
A lot of the help has been withheld in recent times over considerations about human rights abuses underneath the federal government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
However President Joe Biden’s administration introduced this month it had determined to waive human rights restrictions on $235 million of the help, citing safety advantages to the U.S. It’s at the moment withholding $85 million of the help, a fraction of the $1.3 billion a yr allotted for Egypt.
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