As Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi widens his crackdown on government critics, a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts including former officials urged US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to call out America's longtime ally for human rights abuses. 

“The United States should make clear it is watching,” the Working Group on Egypt wrote in a letter addressed to Pompeo Tuesday. “As one of Egypt’s most important international partners, the United States has a responsibility to use its influence with Sisi to halt these egregious abuses of internationally recognized human rights.”

The report noted the January death of dual citizen Mostafa Kassem in Egyptian custody, as well as the ongoing detention of Americans including Mohammed Amashah and Khaled Hassan.  

American citizen Mohamed Soltan, an activist who spent nearly two years in a Cairo prison, recently filed a lawsuit in a US court against Egypt's former prime minister and other officials he blames for his detention and near death during it. In apparent retaliation, five of Soltan’s cousins were arrested last month in Egypt on trumped-up terrorism charges and his father has disappeared from his prison cell.