President Donald Trump is meeting Monday with Egyptian President General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi—who’s overseen a “brutal human rights crackdown”—with the U.S. president telling the autocrat: “You have a great friend and ally in the United States and in me.”
Trump’s warm reception for Sisi follows chumminess between the two even before the real estate mogul moved into the White House. Trump had praised the “chemistry” between the two and called Sisi “a fantastic guy.”
A press statement released last week by the White House said the leaders would “build on the positive momentum they have built for the United States-Egypt relationship.”
Human rights organizations had urged Trump to use the meeting to pressure Sisi over vast human rights violations, but given the praise they previously bestowed upon each other, their appearance at a press conference on Monday, and a statement from the White House, there appears to be no chance of that happening.
“As President Sisi visits the White House, his government is overseeing a campaign of repression that flies in the face of American values,” declared Maya Foa, a director at human rights organization Reprieve.
Outlining that repression, Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch, wrote:
Yet, CNN writes,
And, in a stark contrast to the press conference he had with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump said of Sisi Monday: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everyone know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sisi… he’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt and the United States has, believe me, backing—believe me, we have strong backing.” (Some observers also noted that while Merkel was offered no handshake, Sisi got two from Trump.)
Ahead of the visit, Amnesty USA urged Trump not to “turn a blind eye to Egypt’s human rights crisis.”
“Trump has the opportunity to hold Egypt’s government to account for its brutal human rights crackdown, including mass arbitrary arrests and killings of dissidents, enforced disappearances, and blatantly unfair trials,” said Sunjeev Bery, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA. During his meeting with Sisi, “Trump must make clear that the extent of diplomatic relations with the U.S. depends on Egypt’s willingness to address its human rights abuses,” Bery said.
“Neither side in this relationship seems interested in promoting human rights,” added Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “Inviting al-Sisi for an official visit to Washington as tens of thousands of Egyptians rot in jail and when torture is again the order of the day is a strange way to build a stable strategic relationship,” she said.
The situations of those prisoners was the impetus for a Sunday vigil at the Washington Monument, about a mile from where Sisi and Trump would be meeting.
“We’re giving $1.5bn to an autocrat who has killed thousands of people, who has imprisoned tens of thousands of people, including Americans,” demonstrator Mohamed Soltan, an American who was jailed in Egypt for nearly two years, said to Al Jazeera. “We’re here to shed light on their plight.”
The Guardian notes that
Still, independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous noted at The Nation: “Egypt has been a close ally of the United States for nearly four decades and is the second-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel. Despite Sisi’s crackdown, the Obama administration did little to alter that relationship.”