House Democrats on Tuesday urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to reprogram a portion of Egypt’s annual military assistance if the North African country fails to meet the Biden administration’s human rights requirements.

After promising to make human rights “central” to the US-Egypt relationship, the administration said in September it would withhold $130 million — a fraction of Egypt’s $1.3 billion in annual US military assistance — unless Egypt improved its rights record by the administration’s deadline, reported to be Jan. 30. 

The administration reportedly told the Egyptian government that in order to receive the withheld assistance it would need to end a decade-old investigation of human rights defenders and civil society groups, as well as drop charges against or release 16 people whose cases the Biden administration has previously raised with Cairo. 

Egypt has since freed several prominent political prisoners but “continues to perpetuate pervasive and systemic violations of human rights,” read the letter to Blinken led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks.