Topping coverage of Egypt in the foreign press this morning is the news that Italian student Giulio Regeni’s lawyer Ibrahim Metwally is being charged with disseminating false news. The Guardian, The Independent, and The National all have the story.

US officials and members of Congress would be wise to decline Ikhwan member Amr Darrag’s request for meetings, Eric Trager writes for The Hill. He says the Ikhwan are “an international hate group that seeks to overthrow the region’s existing governments, and Washington should have no interest in allowing the Brotherhood to score a propaganda victory by giving Darrag an audience during his visit.” Darrag is speaking at Georgetown University today. Trager says “the Brotherhood wants to appear accepted in Washington’s corridors of power, even as it otherwise promotes a hostile political vision. Washington should respond by demonstrating its awareness of Darrag’s violent advocacy and sending him back to Istanbul with a blank schedule.”

A coalition of human rights groups is asking the US to target 15 cases they presented against police, spy chiefs, and other officials globally for sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. One of the 15 cases involves Egyptian officials and accuses Ismailia Governorate Police Chief Mohamed Ali Hussein and Assistant Minister of Interior for Upper Egypt Mohamed Khaleesi of “documented physical and psychological torture of multiple individuals, including an American-Egyptian dual citizen who attended a pro-democracy protest in Cairo on August 14, 2013.” The Act “which then-President Barack Obama signed in December 2016, expands the scope of 2012 legislation that froze the assets of Russian officials and banned them from traveling to the United States because of their links to the 2009 death in prison of a whistleblower, Sergey Magnitsky.”

Also worth a skim today:

• Egypt is being named as one of the PR industry’s “risky clients” that come with rich agreements but potential reputational risks, similar to the one that is destroying Bell Pottinger now, Bloomberg’s Joe Mayes writes.
• Reporters Without Borders says it is “alarmed by the roundabout nationalization” of Egyptian media outlets, criticizing state-owned Akhbar Al Youm’s takeover of Daily News Egypt and Al Borsa, the Associated Press reports.
• Award-winning US actor-director Forest Whitaker will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Gouna Film Festival on 22-29 September, Variety says.
• Bizcommunity profiles Egyptian entrepreneurs Rana Rafie and Yara Yassin, who founded UpFuse, a startup that creates fashionable accessories from trash and that recently won the 2017 WeMena competition.
• The US needs cuts aid to Egypt even further, HuffingtonPost contributor Doug Bandow believes.