Egypt's new President poses challenge to western supporters
The United States remains deeply committed to seeing Egypt succeed. We want to see the people of Egypt succeed and we want to contribute to the success of Egypt.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
And with that, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the restoration of $575 million in military aid to Egypt -- money that was partly withheld after the military takeover that saw former President Mohamed Morsi removed from power. Morsi was officially replaced with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi earlier this month.
Less than 24 hours after that meeting, in which Secretary of State Kerry re-iterated U.S. support for Egypt, a decision came from Egypt's courts that sent the world into outrage.
Three Al-Jazeera journalists, one of them Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, sentenced to years in prison. Egypt charged them with spreading false news, conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood, and endangering national security.
What he was saying was that in Egypt, journalism can be a crime.Sharif Abdel Kouddous, reporter
It's a decision that's shifted the world's eyes to Egypt's newest president, and raised the question of how these sentences will affect his relationship with the West.
To discuss, we were joined by three guests:
- Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a reporter with the American independent news program Democracy Now, and a fellow at the nonprofit media centre The Nation Institute. He was in Cairo.
- Bessma Momani is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.
- Eric Trager is the Esther K. Wagner Fellow at The Washington Institute.
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This segment was produced by The Current's Pacinthe Mattar, Lara O'Brien and Catherine Kalbfleisch.