The US on Thursday blasted the continued detention of Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nur and the "harsh tactics" used against peaceful demonstrators in its key Middle East ally.
"The United States is deeply troubled by the continued prosecution and imprisonment of Egyptian politician Ayman Nur. We are also disturbed by reports that Mr Nur has been barred from writing while in prison and that diplomats have been prevented from visiting him," the White House said in a statement.
"We are concerned as well by the harsh tactics employed by Egyptian authorities against citizens peacefully demonstrating on behalf of Mr Nur and political reform," the statement said.
It urged Cairo to release the opposition leader as well as "citizens peacefully demonstrating on behalf of Mr Nur and political reform."
The strong reaction came after a high court in Cairo rejected Nur's appeal of his five-year sentence, handed down in December on his conviction for forging political documents to register his party.
Also on Thursday, Egyptian officials arrested hundreds of people protesting in support of two judges facing disciplinary action for denouncing state-sponsored electoral fraud.
city center sealed off
Thousands of policemen wearing full riot gear and security forces in plain clothes completely sealed off the city center to prevent any recurrence of pro-judges demonstrations that have gathered momentum over the last few weeks.
According to witnesses and reporters, police with truncheons encircled small clusters of protesters and clubbed them.
It was not immediately clear how many were wounded in the violence but some 400 people were detained across the capital, according to a senior official from the opposition Muslim Brothers, including MPs from the Islamist movement.
"The United States calls upon the Egyptian Government to act in the spirit of its professed desire for increased political openness and dialogue within Egyptian society by releasing Mr Nur and protesters who have been detained," the White House statement said.
"The United States supports the rights of Egyptians and people throughout the Middle East to peacefully advocate for democracy and political reform."
The statement followed a denunciation earlier in the day by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack who called Nur's detention a "miscarriage of justice ... and a setback for the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people."
aid not under threat
But despite the latest criticism of Cairo for backsliding on human rights, Washington signaled no intention to cut the massive US aid package provided annually to Egypt -- about US$2 billion in military and economic aid.
Washington has been highly critical of the pace of Egypt's long-promised democratic reforms, as well as violence and intimidation in last year's parliamentary election, a decision last month to renew a state of emergency for two years, and crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrators.
But McCormack said Cairo remained a friend and ally, and overall "we believe Egypt is on a path forward to greater political openness and political freedom for all of its people."
He acknowledged some concern in Congress over the level of assistance to Egypt, yet added, "We believe at this point that the current aid levels, as well as the areas in which that money is spent, are appropriate."
"We do derive some benefits from those aid programs. We derive quite a few benefits from the military-to-military relationship with the government of Egypt," McCormack said.
He shrugged off a report issued last week by the watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) that said the US administration had no mechanism to assess whether military aid to Egypt was being used effectively.
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