Berlin, Jan 19, 2020 – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed US “outrage” in a meeting Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over the death of an American national imprisoned in Egypt since 2013. Mustafa Kassem, a 54-year-old Egyptian-American who suffered from diabetes and heart problems, died January 13 after a hunger strike in which he ceased drinking fluids for four days before his death. Pompeo, who met with the Egyptian president in Berlin on the sidelines of an international conference on Libya, “expressed outrage over the pointless and tragic death of detained US citizen Mustafa Kassem in Egypt,” StateDepartment spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement. Washington had recently stepped up its remonstrations with the Egyptian government, despite the regular displays of friendship between President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart. Pompeo expressed concern about freedom of the press and human rights in Egypt, in response to a series of arrests of journalists, intellectuals and activists following a rare outbreak of demonstrations against Sisi in September.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 19, 2020 16:07 UTC