(1) According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, two weeks before the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Egyptian Government daily newspaper Al-Akhbar published a column that stated: `The Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, must be destroyed because of following the idiotic American policy that goes from disgrace to disgrace in the swamp of bias and blind fanaticism.'.
(2) Since forging a `cold peace' with Israel in 1978, the Government of Egypt has placed severe trade restrictions on Israeli goods and Egyptian Government officials have allowed anti-Semitic articles and cartoons to flood the semi-official Egyptian press.
(3) In violation of the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, Egypt continues to promote a boycott of Israeli products.
(4) The Israeli Defense Forces have repeatedly found arms smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. More than 40 tunnels were discovered in 2003. Some of these tunnels originate in Egyptian army and police outposts.
(5) Despite facing no major regional external threat, Egypt has used military assistance from the United States to purchase combat aircraft, advanced missile systems, tanks, and naval vessels that undermine Israel's security.
(6) The Coptic Christian minority of between 6 and 10 million in Egypt is victimized regularly, and remains without protection. The Government of Egypt has never taken responsibility for the arrest and torture of more than 1,200 Copts in late 1998 in the wake of sectarian violence.
(7) Egypt regularly tortures its citizens. According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights approximately 13,000 to 16,000 people are detained without charge on suspicion of security or political offenses in Egypt each year. Amnesty International published a report in 2003 stating that `everyone taken into detention in Egypt is at risk of torture'.
U.S. Congress - Text of H.R.2977 as Introduced in House Egyptian Counterterrorism and Political Reform Act
