[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 12, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4362-S4363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Egypt

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I want to paint a picture for you just for 
a moment. It takes place on a tarmac in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, 
just a few weeks ago, in fact.
  A small private jet arrives from Egypt. It lands there, hoping to go 
unnoticed because of what is on board that jet. But it does get noticed 
by Zambian authorities. They board the plane, and they find inside a 
cargo that sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. On board 
that plane is $5.7 million in U.S. currency, 602 bars of gold, five 
pistols, and 126 rounds of ammunition.
  To make the story even more bizarre, it turns out that the gold was 
not actually real. It was fake bars of gold. The currency is real, the 
ammunition is real, but the gold is fake.
  Zambia arrests 12 people, 6 of whom are Egyptian citizens. 
Immediately, as you can imagine, speculation begins about what is 
exactly going on.
  That is an interesting story, right? But the reason I tell you this 
story isn't because of what happened in Zambia. It is because of what 
happened next in Cairo. Six of these individuals were Egyptian 
citizens. The plane came from Egypt. So, of course, journalists in 
Cairo start to do some digging. A fact-checking platform named 
Matsadaash--I am probably butchering the pronunciation, but it is 
Arabic, roughly, for ``don't believe it.'' They report on the alleged 
involvement of former Egyptian security officials in the incident, but 
this kind of truth telling is just not allowed in Egypt today.
  Egypt is a closed society. It is a dictatorship in which political 
dissent is crushed. The free press is essentially nonexistent, and as a 
consequence, top officials are allowed to enrich themselves without any 
accountability.
  So what happened to the journalists at Matsadaash is interesting, but 
it is, frankly, par for the course in Egypt. Here is what happened. In 
response for doing this reporting, Egyptian security officials went 
straight to the home of the journalist. They raided his home. They 
forced him to log onto his computer as they were there, and they forced 
him to delete the Facebook posts about the issue at hand.
  Egypt just wanted this story to disappear, and they were willing to 
do whatever it took to make this happen. We may never know the full 
story of what happened in that airport--what was going on with that 
plane--but what we do know is that the Egyptian Government's reaction 
is part of a completely predictable pattern to muzzle and silence the 
truth tellers by force.
  Beyond these attacks on Matsadaash, two other journalists covering 
the episode were also detained immediately after without charge. One of 
the last remaining independent media outlets in Cairo, Mada Masr has 
repeatedly been refused a legal license to operate.
  Websites that report on this kind of activity of Egyptian officials 
are shut down as soon as they appear. Activists are regularly jailed 
for ``spreading false news'' about human rights violations. Over and 
over again, the government's playbook is just the same: Shut down 
voices that are critical of the government and throw in jail people who 
don't comply.
  Around this same time last year, I came down to the Senate floor to 
make a very similar speech, to talk about an annual decision that the 
administration has to make with regard to our aid to Egypt.
  Now, Congress, in a bipartisan way, cares about this campaign of 
brutal repression against the press and political dissent in Egypt. 
That is why our annual appropriations bill limits the amount of money 
the administration can send to Egypt, depending on the government's 
human rights record.
  Specifically, this year, Congress has said that $320 million of the 
aid we send, which is roughly about a quarter of the aid, can't go to 
Egypt unless the administration certifies that Egypt has made real 
progress on these questions of political climate, $85 million of which 
is tied to the release of specific political prisoners and the 
remaining $235 million on broader improvements on questions of human 
rights and democracy.
  Now, I just want to be honest with you. In the past, the Bush 
administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, 
they just routinely waived these conditions and sent the full amount 
without any real progress. They said it was about American national 
security, without any actual evaluation as to what the consequence of 
withholding the money would be to our national security. But

[[Page S4363]]

to the Biden administration's credit, over the past 2 years, they have 
withheld a portion of Egypt's military aid because of these human 
rights violations.
  And last night, as I was writing this speech, the administration 
rightly decided to withhold that first tranche--$85 million tied to the 
release of political prisoners--because there is just no question, 
there has not been enough progress.
  Why do we know that? Because while Egypt released and has released 
more than 1,600 political prisoners since early 2022--that is good 
news--during that same time, they have jailed 5,000 more.
  So for every political prisoner Egypt releases, three more are 
jailed. That is one step forward and three steps back. That is not the 
kind of ``clear and consistent progress in releasing political 
prisoners'' that the law requires. The administration was right to 
withhold the $85 million.
  But what about the remaining $235 million? I would argue that the 
answer is just as simple. The Biden administration needs to hold the 
line. As evidenced by the response to the fake gold-filled plane, 
political repression is getting worse, not better, in Egypt.
  Now, every year there are some people who argue that even though 
Egypt really hasn't made any progress on human rights, they should get 
the money anyway, in the name of national security; that if we dare to 
withhold even a small portion of that money, Egypt is going to stop 
cooperating with us and they are going to run to Russia or China 
instead.
  But as we have seen in the last 2 years when the administration did 
withhold a portion of the $1.3 billion, the sky did not fall. Yes, I 
will admit to you our diplomats in Cairo probably had some very tough 
conversations, and the Egyptians certainly have made life a little bit 
more difficult for our diplomats around the edges, but the core 
security relationship remains intact. Why is that?
  It is because the things that we want Egypt to do that are good for 
our national security--like working to keep the situation in Gaza as 
stable as possible through its relationship with Hamas, ensuring the 
free flow of commerce and U.S. warships through the Suez Canal, keeping 
counterterrorism operations going in the Sinai--President Sisi does all 
those things because it is in Egypt's independent national security 
interest to do so, not because we pay them to do it.
  Maybe when we started giving them a billion dollars in aid back in 
the 1980s, Egypt, in fact, complied with our national security requests 
because of that monetary relationship, but today Egypt engages in those 
activities because they have an independent reason to do so.
  In fact, it is telling that even though the Egyptians continue to 
receive a billion dollars per year in military aid, even with that 
money, they are reportedly, and have been reportedly, seeking to do 
deals with the Russians and the Chinese.
  Earlier this year, reporting on leaked documents revealed that Egypt 
had made a secret deal to provide Russia, in the middle of the Ukraine 
war, with 40,000 rockets. Now, only after a flurry of high-level 
diplomatic interventions did the Egyptians change course.
  And despite a reported request in March of this year from Secretary 
Austin for Egypt to help Ukraine, the Egyptians have not yet done so. 
And so the question is, Is this the behavior of a country that we call 
a key security partner?
  And let me be clear, this decision that the administration is going 
to make, it matters far beyond Egypt. If we say human rights and 
democracy matters to America, then it has to matter in more than words. 
When we cut corners and we fail to hold our partners accountable for 
human rights abuses, people notice.
  Now, I am not naive. I know that the question of whether we withhold 
a couple hundred million dollars in security assistance from President 
Sisi is not going to convince him to end his brutal campaign of 
political repression. But when we walk the walk, not just talk the 
talk, on human rights, another audience hears us: activists, the people 
who are doing this work on the streets in places like Cairo. Those who 
are fighting for democracy and human rights in countries with little of 
either, they gather courage from knowing that the United States is on 
their side. And it is those forces, those organic, domestic forces, 
that truly make change. But when we keep on doing business as usual 
with Saudi Arabia or Tunisia or Egypt, despite their behavior, we send 
a signal to democracy activists that we aren't serious, that we don't 
have their back.
  And so I am glad for the administration's decision last night to 
withhold a part of the funding that Congress has required to be 
withheld unless we see significant progress on human rights. And my 
belief is that there is only one decision to be made on the remaining 
dollars because the record is clear, Egypt continues to help us on 
national security priorities where our interests align, and there is 
good reason to continue a security relationship with Cairo to preserve 
those interests.
  In other areas like the war in Ukraine, Egypt has not been a helpful 
partner, and we need to be clear-eyed about our security relationship 
with Egypt and also about Egypt's human rights record.
  The decision the administration will make this week about holding the 
Egyptians accountable for progress on human rights, it is critical to 
American credibility. And for that reason, I would urge the 
administration to finish the job and withhold the full $320 million as 
required by the fiscal year 2022 appropriations act until Egypt's human 
rights and democracy record improves.
  I yield the floor.