EGYPT - Aug. 16 - Bush To Oppose New Aid Over Human Rights.

A report in The FT says: "[US Pres.] Bush will oppose any new aid to Egypt in response to Cairo's prosecution of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an academic and human rights campaigner". The report quotes US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker as saying: "We're not contemplating any additional funds for Egypt at this time". He says Cairo received $1.3 bn in foreign military assistance each year and in 2002 received another $650m in economic support and $1.2 bn in international military, training and educational funding. The US decision will affect only additional funds being contemplated and not money Cairo receives under the Camp David commitments. (Authorities charged Ibrahim, who lectures on democracy and human rights, with embezzling funds and tarnishing the country's image, sentencing him on July 29 to seven years in jail).

On Aug. 15, Reeker said: "We have concerns about what [the case] says about democratic reforms in Egypt and in terms of a human rights question, we have called for his [Ibrahim's] release". FM Ahmad Maher responded angrily, saying: "We do not give in to pressure". He said the courts were independent from the government "and we ask everyone to respect our judiciary as we respect theirs". (Cairo is a critical Arab ally in particular as Washington tries to calm tensions between Israel and the PA and in its efforts to overthrow Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein. The US is also counting on Cairo in its war against terrorism and Islamic extremism. But Egypt is also widely criticised by the US for its restriction of individual freedoms and its attempts to thwart grassroots human rights organisations. In its 2002 report, Human Rights Watch wrote of Egypt: "The human rights situation continued to deteriorate, marked by violations of freedom of expression, association, and assembly; widespread arrests of government opponents and prolonged detentions under state of emergency laws, in force almost continuously since 1967; and grossly unfair trials before military and state security courts"). Tom Malinowski, of Human Rights Watch's Washington office, said the decision to stop additional funding could be "the most significant step the United States has ever taken to defend human rights in the Arab World".