Washington fires back at Egypt’s comments on Ferguson

During the US State Department’s daily briefing on Tuesday, Deputy Spokesperson Mary Harf responded to the recent Egyptian Foreign Affairs statement regarding the Ferguson protests, saying that the US practices freedom of expression that isn't upheld with the same respect in Egypt.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Badr Abdel Aty had said in a press conference on Tuesday that Egypt “closely monitors” the protests in Ferguson and reiterated the United Nation’s calls on the US to exercise “self-restraint” and “respect the right of assembly and peaceful expression of opinion.”

Large protests had broken out in Ferguson, Missouri and were met with a violent police response following the killing of a teenager by a police officer.

“We here in the United States will put our record for confronting our problems transparently and openly and honestly up against anyone else’s in the world. And we, when we have issues here, confront them in that way, as you’ve seen over the past few days, and we would call on other countries to do the same. And unfortunately, we haven’t always seen that, so we’ll keep calling on them to do so,” Harf said in a response to a question about Egypt’s comment.

Asked whether she believed the Egyptian comment is meant as an answer to the US criticism of the Egyptian government, Harf continues, “People are free to say what they’d like. They are free to weigh in on issues. That’s the beauty of freedom of expression that we hold very dearly here in the United States. That freedom of expression hasn’t, quite frankly, been upheld with the same sort of respect in Egypt.”

Social media has responded to the Foreign Ministry’s statement with sarcasm as Egypt has imposed strict limitations on freedom of assembly and expression in the past year, issuing a Protest Law that requires a permit from the Ministry of Interior before assembly and arresting thousands of demonstrators in the past period, sentencing many to lengthy jail sentences.

Harf refused the comparison between the situation in Egypt and that in Ferguson, reiterating the US government’s concern about the human rights situation in Egypt.

Similarly Ministry of Interior Spokesperson Hany Abdel Latif gave advice to the US police during a phone interview on Sada al-Balad station on Tuesday regarding the treatment of protesters.

Abdel Latif urges the US police to negotiate with protesters and refrain from the use of excessive force. The Egyptian police is notorious for violence against protesters, as well as for practicing other forms of human rights violations, such as torture of detainees.