It is high time for US and EU to get tough with Trump's "favorite dictator"-Egypt's President Abdel-Fatah al- Sisi

By John Solomou
Nicosia [Cyprus], December 21 : The President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the ruler of the most populous Arab country, in his seven-year iron rule has been violating almost all human rights of the relevant Universal Declaration, but so far has been treated scandalously gently by the United States and the European Union.
According to the U.S. State Department's report on human rights' conditions in Egypt in 2019 there were unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents; forced disappearance; torture; arbitrary detention; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, political prisoners and arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy.
The report also says that during 2019 in Egypt there were the worst forms of restrictions on free expression, the press and the internet, including arrests or prosecutions against journalists, censorship, site blocking, substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, such as overly restrictive laws governing civil society organizations; restrictions on political participation; violence involving religious minorities; violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons; arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of LGBTI persons; and forced or compulsory child labour.
One month after the Egyptian Army overthrew Egypt's first democratically elected civilian President, Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, on 14 August 2013 troops moved in two pro-Morsi camps where thousands of Islamists had been protesting against the coup and killed more than 817 people. The Human Rights Watch described the event as "one of the largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history." Later on, the Muslim Brotherhood was declared illegal and thousands of Islamists were thrown to jail, while Morsi died in 2019, while his trial was going on.
Currently, there are more than 60,000 political prisoners, Islamists, people who oppose the government for various reasons, journalists, lawyers, academics.
Sisi's government's latest move was to arrest three officials of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIRP) last month, because they gave European Union diplomats,at their request, a briefing on the situation of human rights in Egypt, something which would be routine in most countries. The three members of the EIPR were released after international pressure from Western policymakers, diplomats and even celebrities like Scarlett Johanson and Emma Thompson.
Antony Blinken, who is President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for Secretary of State, indicated that the incoming administration would take a sterner position on the question of Egypt's violations of human rights. Reacting to the news of the arrests, Blinken, a former board member of US Advocacy Group Human Rights First, tweeted: "Meeting with foreign diplomats is not a crime. Nor is peacefully advocating human rights." On another occasion, Blinken said that a Biden Administration would take a firmer stand against abuses of human rights.
Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution, strongly condemning "the latest state crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests, as well as the ongoing restrictions on fundamental rights in the country. Egyptian authorities have in the past weeks arbitrarily arrested over 4300 people who have been protesting against systemic corruption, repression and austerity measures, and have demanded the resignation of the Egyptian President."
Enraging activists who had warned French President Emmanuel Macron not to bestow honours on the Egyptian President during his recent controversial visit to Paris, Macron decorated Sisi with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and refused to make trade relations between France and Egypt conditional on Sisi's respect for human rights.
US President Donald Trump, who never cared much about human rights, has described Sisi as "a fantastic guy" and "my favorite dictator". For Trump and successive US Administrations, Egypt is a very important country for US interests for many reasons. To name but a few, Egypt controls the strategic Suez Canal, has a peace treaty with Israel and cooperates with the Jewish state against militants and instability in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. It should be noted that for Fiscal Year 2021, the President is requesting about $1.4 billion as assistance to Egypt, almost all for purchases of military equipment.
In sharp contrast to Trump, Biden said that there would be "No more blank checks for Trump's favorite dictator". Biden pledged to put democracy back on the agenda and promised to host a gathering of the world democracies to demonstrate his commitment to democratic values all over the world.
What remains to be seen is whether the United States and the European Union, apart from verbal condemnations of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi about his human right abuses, will be prepared to stop selling arms to Egypt and giving it financial aid, and proceed to impose targeted sanctions for his government abuses of human rights.
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watchsays : "Western governments share the blame for this dismal state of affairs by supporting the Sisi government politically and financially with little effort to hold it to the most basic human rights standards. For example, when then-General Sisi oversaw the killing of at least 817 sit-in protesters in Rabaa Square over the course of twelve hours in 2013, most governments made no serious effort to press for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Similarly, governments remained largely silent after the Sisi government's brutal repression of mass protests in September 2019. Those precedents of impunity have only encouraged the Sisi government's ongoing abuses... It's time now for a new approach."