Democratic senator says US decision to waive Egypt aid conditions paved way for press crackdown

A senior Democratic senator has blamed a crackdown on independent journalism in Egypt on the Trump administration's decision to waive human rights conditions attached to US military funding for the country. Chris Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairs a congressional committee on the Middle East and counterterrorism, accused Washington of abandoning the Egyptian people after restrictions were lifted on more than $300m of defence assistance. Speaking at the Middle East Institute in Washington this week, he said there was no doubt the waiver and the crackdown were linked. "The minute that money was released, the crackdown began in an absolutely devastating way," he said. The past month has seen a series of arrests of journalists at two of the few remaining independent news outlets in Egypt, where newspapers and TV stations are closely controlled by the authorities. Earlier this month, six journalists from the independent fact-checking platform Matsda2sh were detained and charged with belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and are now facing terrorism charges. On Tuesday, a court in Cairo ordered the closure of the news website Madr Masr and fined its editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, in a ruling Amnesty International described as "a crushing blow to press freedom". The US State Department told the BBC it waived conditions on a portion of military aid to Egypt in September because of the country's "importance to US national security interests". According to a September 4 memo seen by Reuters, 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, during which Cairo assisted negotiations between Washington and Tehran. The memo, bearing Rubio's signature, described exercising the waiver authority as "essential" to the US-Egypt relationship, "particularly in light of Egypt's helpful role following Operation Epic Fury". Washington sends Egypt about $1.73bn (£1.3bn) a year, making it one of the world's largest recipients of US military assistance. US law allows up to $320m of that funding to be withheld, conditional on Egypt meeting democracy and human rights requirements, but the restrictions can be waived by the administration on national security grounds. Military aid to Cairo began after the 1978 Camp David Accords and the peace treaty that followed between Egypt and Israel, and successive administrations have viewed the most populous Arab country as a critical regional ally. Rubio's move followed a similar decision by the Biden administration in 2024, when then Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived the conditions to grant Egypt its full allocation as Washington sought Cairo's help mediating between Israel and Hamas in the war in Gaza. Before that, the Biden administration had withheld portions of the annual military allocation over Egypt's human rights record. Murphy said he had been a critic of 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," he told the Middle East Institute. "Any hope of a true, meaningful political opposition rebirthing in Egypt has been shattered by this decision," he added. Cairo has remained a close US ally despite what human rights groups describe as widespread abuses under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, including torture and enforced disappearances. Sisi denies there are political prisoners in Egypt and has previously said stability and security are paramount, arguing that authorities have promoted rights by providing basic needs such as jobs and housing. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. Timothy E Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington DC-based think tank, said the conviction of Attalah and the closure of Madr Masr marked an unprecedented escalation in the repression of press freedoms in Egypt. He told the BBC that both the US and the European Union had been prioritising their strategic relations with Egypt over human rights and the rule of law, fostering "a sense of impunity on the part of the Egyptian authorities". "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 said, adding that the lack of robust pushback "reinforces the wrong message". Reporters Without Borders ranks Egypt among the world's biggest jailers of journalists.