As Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with officials in Egypt on Wednesday, activists and former detainees drew attention to the record of human rights abuses that the Biden administration said would be "central” to the US-Egypt relationship. 

Blinken met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as part of a Middle East tour aimed at lending US support to the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that last week ended 11 days of fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Speaking with reporters after the meeting, Blinken said he raised with Sisi the issue of wrongfully detained Americans and that the pair had a "lengthy discussion" on human rights, which have sharply deteriorated in Egypt since Sisi came to power in a 2013 coup. 

Under Sisi’s watch, Egyptian security forces have made use of the country’s broad counterterrorism laws to jail tens of thousands of perceived government critics, including US citizens and their family members. In January 2020, New York City taxi driver Mustafa Kassem died behind bars following a hunger strike and repeated pleas for Washington to secure his release.  

While Egypt’s sweeping campaign of arrests is well known, a new report from the Washington-based rights group The Freedom Initiative details how the country’s detention practices are “not felt only within its own borders” but on American soil.