Glossing over rights violations in Egypt

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has recently ordered the closing of some trade union centers and detained a number of dissidents in the wake of the passage of a set of controversial constitutional amendments that are said to further entrench executive authority. Despite all this, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt declared that the government has “a commitment to the opinion of the common Egyptian citizen” in a recent interview on Egyptian television (See Friday’s post for more details). The International Herald Tribune derides the Ambassador’s statements in an editorial Sunday.

The editorial rails against the human rights violations being perpetrated by the Egyptian government. Government critics, bloggers, journalists, and protesters have been imprisoned and beaten over the past months. The piece also denounces the U.S. government’s silence and denial and calls for a firm reaction. Apart from allowing more repression in Egypt, U.S. passivity damages America’s image, the Tribune argues, given that the U.S. State Department’s latest human rights report clearly shows that, as the editorial says, “Egypt’s rights record remain poor.”

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