After US Restores Military Aid to Egypt, Egypt Says Thank You by Giving US Citizen Life Sentence for Protesting

The Egyptian government has sentenced a US citizen to life in prison for participating in protests just days after the US restored military aid that had been cut off because of Egypt's military dictatorship.

The New York Times reports that Mohamed Soltan was given the sentence because he protested the military's coup against the democratically elected Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The military coup dashed hopes of a democratic future for Egypt. As a result, there has been a marked uptick in terrorist attacks against the police and military, because people believe the security forces denied them their right to democratic self expression.

Soltan's case was part of a large trial involving more than 35 other people accused of similar crimes. About a dozen people were given death sentences for their protests against the state.

The life imprisonment of a US citizen for protesting is a huge embarrassment for the US government, particularly because the US government has approved new military aid, which only empowers the dictatorship.

The protests Soltan participated in were met with repressive violence by the Egyptian military. To disperse a protest at Rabia square, the police used armored vehicles and bullets, killing nearly 800 people. In the months after the military regained control of the streets, thousands of people were arrested and given death sentences for protesting the illegal military coup.

In once instance, hundreds of people were given death sentences simultaneously, despite the fact there was evidence that at least some of those people were not even in the towns where they were accused of protesting.

The US embassy said that the US government is "gravely concerned" about Soltan, but the fact he is imprisoned while the US government provides arms to the military dictatorship that arrested him for expressing his democratic rights suggests that the US government is not truly concerned at all.