U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Egypt to release political prisoners as leaders prepare for the global climate summit.
Human rights teams estimate that some 60,000 political prisoners are in bars in Egypt, which will host more than 90 world leaders who will join President Joe Biden for COP27 next week.
In a call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Blinken spoke about the climate and said cooperation between the United States and Egypt “is through tangible progress on human rights,” the State Department said.
Blinken “welcomed the reported releases in recent months of a significant number of political prisoners, and expressed support for such pardons and further releases, as well as measures for the rule of law and the coverage of basic freedoms for all,” he said.
They did not list quick cases, but risked a call for an intervention by Alaa Abdel Fattah, a prominent dissident who went on hunger strike and whose circle of relatives warned he could die if not released at the climate summit.
A leading figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah is serving a five-year sentence for “spreading fake news” after spending much of the bars for more than a decade.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said before Blinken’s phone call that the United States is closely following Abdel Fattah’s fate.
“We have raised repeated considerations about this case and his detention with the Egyptian government,” Price told reporters on Wednesday.
Biden came to the workplace promising a tougher stance on human rights with Egypt and other Arab allies, but his management turned to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former general who toppled the elected government in 2013.
Biden is expected to meet Sisi at the weather summit at the Sharm el-Sheikh city hotel and his management last year relied on Egyptian mediation to end the fighting between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants.
An organization of U. S. lawmakers involved in human rights in Egypt called on Biden to redirect his $1. 3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt to weather projects in the parched country.
“We are deeply committed to fighting climate substitution and believe that foreign cooperation is at the heart of this effort, but Egypt was not the right choice for COP27,” said Democratic Reps. Don Beyer and Tom Malinowski.
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