Ayman Nour

An American student witnesses the internal democracy of Al-Ghad party.

2010-03-17T00:59:00.004+02:00

Two days ago, internal elections on the 4 seats of deputies in the Alexandria chapter of al-Ghad liberal party were as competitive as you may imagine. Sallie, an American student working on her thesis in Egypt, was there during the vote counting and subsequent celebrated declaration of results. She wrote the following post on her blog. We publish it after her permission:

A Day with Ayman Nour and al-Ghad

Ayman Nour walking to the al-Ghad party headquarters in Alexandria

Yesterday I found myself smack in the middle of Egyptian politics.
After a last-minute invitation from a new friend, I hopped on a mini-bus at 9am for the three-hour trip from Cairo to Alexandria. Thankfully the trip was completely uneventful, and the bus was even air-conditioned. Around 1pm we found ourselves sitting at a beach-front cafe sipping fresh juices (strawberry for me, guava for her) and reveling in the clean air and smell of the sea. We took a long stroll down the corniche (the road which runs along the water) and found ourselves outside Ayman Nour’s apartment at quarter to three – 15 minutes early! (Apparently neither of us have gotten back on Egyptian time yet.)

(Quick background: Ayman Nour is a well-known figurehead of opposition politics in Egypt. Formerly a member of the Wafd party, Nour left to form al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party in 2004. Al-Ghad was officially licensed just in time for Nour to run for President in 2005, Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential elections since Nasser’s revolution in 1952. Nour came in second to president Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981. Officially Nour received 8% of the vote, but there is speculation that the actual percentage was much higher. Following the election Nour was convicted on forgery charges largely recognized as politically motivated and spent nearly four years in prison. He was released in February of 2009.)

We relaxed in the living room for a while, and eventually the five of us – myself, my friend, Nour, his secretary in Alexandria, and another Ghad party member – left for lunch. Nour nodded out the window to a guard station as we piled into the car. The four men at the station were watching us, and while three of them didn’t seem particularly concerned the fourth was looking between us and his phone. He was letting his superior know we were leaving the house, Nour said.

Anyone who argues that Nour’s popularity has fallen since his release from prison last year (and multiple tabloid-esque stories in the media) has not seen him in public. From the moment we entered the mall, where we stopped for lunch with other al-Ghad members, the flow of people stopping to speak with Nour, shake his hand, or take a picture with him did not abate until we got back in the car to go home at the end of the night. Men and women young and old approached him, all with smiles and handshakes and waiting cameras.

Eventually we made our way to the al-Ghad party headquarters for the Alexandria chapter. It was election day at the party – there were two issues on the ballot, and a petition as well. The first issue on the ballot was the deputy election (4 available seats, 5 candidates). The other, a referendum to confirm the party’s nomination of Ayman Nour as presidential candidate. The office, the entranceway, and the street outside were full of people milling about, speaking animatedly, talking on their phones, and vying for a moment with Nour.

Eventually my friend and I made our way inside, where there was just as much commotion. People coming to vote, and to sign their names next to their thumb-print on the petition. The petition is for a constitutional amendment to change the current electoral law, an issue supported by figures from Nour to Mohamed el-Baradei, the Egyptian former head of the IAEA. The ruling NDP party, however, has stated that it does not intend to propose constitutional amendments before the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Signing the petition

Yet al-Ghad is determined to prove that change is possible. According to Mohamed el-Wasemy, the Vice-President of the Executive Office for al-Ghad in Alexandria, the party’s internal elections are a lesson for both the party and the Egyptian people at large. The ballot counting was something that probably none of us have ever seen before. The ballot boxes are made of glass, a visual reminder of al-Ghad’s commitment to transparency. The ballots were counted out loud in front of a crowd of more than 60 people, the tallies marked on a board at the front of the room. During Friday night’s tally, every time the marker made a mistake and marked a tally for the wrong candidate, a dozen voices instantly called out and the error was immediately corrected. Each party member seated or standing in the room was watching carefully.

El-Wasemy called the elections a message to Egyptians. “A free election is not impossible to achieve,” he said.

“Political activism is the best way to bring about change in Egypt,” said Mohamed, a member of al-Ghad’s youth chapter, echoing el-Wasemy’s sentiments in an interview earlier in the day. Mohamed is a fairly new member of al-Ghad and sees the party as the only challenge to the regime. Neither the Reform and Development party or the Karama party have received official licenses, and Mohamed said that much of the other supposed opposition in the country has been created by the regime to play the part of opposition without actually being such.

Whether al-Ghad offers real opposition to the ruling NDP or not, the Tomorrow party faces many obstacles in its battle for change. Mohamed pointed to the broken lock and handle on the door of the room we were in. “Obviously we have no funding,” he said. Yet, despite the challenges, many in the party were hopeful as they gathered in the street following the election results.

“Say to me, mabrouk!” called out one of the newly elected deputies. I laughed and said to him, “Mabrouk!” Another new deputy echoed, “And me, and me!” Mabrouk – congratulations.

As the evening drew to a close, the crowd gathered on the street and slowly dispersed. Someone brought cake, and as we stood around talking a young member who spoke a little English walked over. “We call Obama the American Tutankahman,” he said. “We like Obama.” Why? I asked. “Some people love Obama because his father was Muslim,” he said. “But for me, his vision and charisma.”

After talk of el-Baradei (the headquarters of his National Association for Change in Alexandria is located in al-Ghad’s offices), corporate scandal, and a shocked exclamation of, “What is this language?!” as someone tried to decipher my notes, it was time to head back to Cairo. This time, my friend and I caught a ride with a party member back to the city. It was 11:30pm, and past 2am by the time we arrived back in Cairo.

An eventful eighteen hours, to be sure. I wonder what is next?

Nour surrounded by party members

Sallie Pisch

Alexandria, March 13th, 2010

EGYPT: First presidential candidate announced

2010-02-20T03:14:00.001+02:00

February 17, 2010 | 10:09 am

Ayman Nour, founder of El Ghad opposition party, is the first candidate to officially state his intention to run in the nation’s 2011 presidential elections.

Nour was nominated by the majority of his party’s council earlier in the week. "Last time the decision to run for president was my own," he said, "but this time it is my destiny as the party has chosen me and this is a patriotic responsibility that I do not have the right to reject."

The feisty lawyer finished as runner-up to President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s first multi-candidate elections in 2005, but soon afterward, he was charged with forging signatures in support of his run against Mubarak. Human rights organizations said the charges had been trumped up, but Nour was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released last February on medical grounds.

Anyone convicted of such a crime in Egypt is barred from running for the presidency for at least five years after the expiration of the sentence. Still, Nour is confident that the legal system will be on his side when he tries to overturn the ban.

"This will be a legal and constitutional fight and we are ready to launch into it," he said. "We have judicial and constitutional provisions as well as decisions from the Constitutional Court that refute the textual justification for the ban on my participating in politics."

Nour added that he will start his campaign on Thursday by visiting a number of cities, including El Mahalla in the Nile Delta and Port Said by the Suez Canal. In the meantime, two activists belonging to opposition movement, April 6, have been detained on Wednesday for spray-painting walls in Cairo with slogans showing support to former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and potential candidate, Mohamed ElBaradei.

ElBaradei, who will return to Egypt on Friday, left his post at the IAEA in November, and many Egyptians are hoping that he will consider running for president. The former Nobel Peace Prize-winner previously said that he would run only if fair, transparent and internationally monitored elections are guaranteed beforehand.

Mubarak has been in office since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the 81-year-old is yet to confirm whether he will be the ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP) candidate. Speculations mixed with fear have recently grown among millions of Egyptians that Mubarak is grooming Gamal Mubarak, his younger son and head of the NDP’s policies committee, to take his place as head of state.

Nour plans to run for president

2010-01-31T14:09:00.004+02:00

By Amr Emam
Saturday, January 30, 2010

Opposition activist Ayman Nour announced yesterday his desire to run for president in Egypt’s next presidential polls, downplaying the effect of what he called the “legal stumbling blocks” the Government allegedly puts on the opposition’s way to presidency.

Nour said he felt obliged to run in the next elections, which are slated for 2011, so that Egypt could be “put” on track yet again.
“It’s necessary for everyone of us to act now to rescue the future of this country,” Nour said.

“Egypt’s future is in danger and a quick action is required if this country is to continue to hold,” he told The Gazette in an interview.

Nour, the founder of the opposition el-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, called for the formation of a new constitution and a transitional cabinet to be headed by former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed el-Baradie to prepare Egypt for what he called “fair” elections.

Nour came a distant second to Egypt’s incumbent President Hosni Mubarak in the country’s first contested presidential elections in 2005.

Some people say, Nour, who was previously convicted and sent to five years in jail for fabricating party documents, has many legal hindrances ahead if he wants to run for president.

He, however, says he had loaded his guns with the necessary legal arguments and documents to sort this legal problem out.

“If my party chooses to field me as a candidate in the elections, I would seek ways to find a solution to this problem,” Nour said.

“My party would ratchet up the necessary internal and external pressure to make this possible,” he added, without elaboration.

Members from Nour’s party are due to meet on Friday to agree whether they will pick him as
the party‘s presidential candidate.

Despite this, he has already started his campaign by touring more than 20 Egyptian cities to meet ordinary citizens and talk to them about his programme.

Nour, in his mid forties and a lawyer by profession, says he had found support everywhere he went, making him encouraged even more to run for president.

Mubarak, who has been ni power swince 1981, has not said yet wheite he will run for a 6th six-year term in office.

But in a recent interview with the Police Magazine, the President said he would welcome candidates who would “serve” the people.

Heartened by this, Nour is optimistic about his prospects in the elections. “I found support everywhere and this gives me hope,” Nour said.

“People’s feelings to my campaign are more than encouraging,” he added.

Ayman Nour: One year since Obama’s inauguration

2010-01-28T01:57:00.001+02:00

Barack Hussein Obama has made history since he became the first black person to win a seat in the U.S. Senate and made history for the second time when he won the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidential election. He has since made more history when he scored victory in the elections, becoming the first black American President in history.

But making history is different than entering this space and formulating the wide consequences resulted from this victory, as before Obama, American President James Buchanon also made history as the first and the only president to remain a lifelong bachelor, as well as President Martin Van Buren, considering English was not his mother tongue.

Obama’s real problem from the moment of his inauguration last January 20, 2009, is that he began a new phase, which is greater than making history; a difficult stage of the competition, much harder than the old Republican rivals or even his stubborn Democratic rival – and his current Secretary of State – Hilary Clinton, or with his predecessor: Bush.

Obama’s rival after one year in office is himself. He is the only person he cannot defeat, as Obama, the current President of the United States, is a rival to Obama – who was described by the dreamy minds as “the savior”; minds that painted the image of Obama and put it in the background of the image. They drew the descriptions of Moses splitting the sea and Joshua who stopped the sun, and Christ, who revives the dead! And certainly, Obama is not any of these prophets.

Although America is part of the world – and not the whole world – Obama has become a universal dream, especially considering the other was a universal nightmare. Strangely enough, and dangerous, is the conflicting expectations about Obama from related parties whose positions have conflicting interests and can only be unified by hope and ambition in this “magical” image. They have planted in their imagination of Barack Obama, who has to find an impossible approach to fulfill this imagination.

Obama’s problem, who had plenty of sympathy in Egypt and many Arab countries is doubled due to historical considerations and past experience with former presidents of the US, who at the beginning were greeted by them [Arabs], then they called on for their impeachment.

At the end of World War I President Woodrow Wilson made the 12 principles his priority. The last of these principles was the right of every nation to self-determination and Egypt’s Revolution in 1919 was against the British occupation of Egypt, demanding the right to self-determination, and the demonstrators shouted slogans honoring Saad Zaghloul (revolutionary leader) and Mr. Wilson.

In Syria, demonstrations demanded an American Mandate in the hope of the promise of Wilson.

Suddenly, President Wilson recognized the British protégé in Egypt, and demonstrations were organized to call for his impeachment, after it was organized in the beginning to cheer his life! The same thing happened in Syria, when he recognized the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon!

When President Roosevelt declared the Four Freedoms, the motivation of Arabs turned from Hitler to America, then Truman succeeded Roosevelt, to recognize Israel, breaking Roosevelt’s promises during World War II, causing a shock to the Arabs and a shift in their feelings as they were frustrated.

This happened in 1956, when America gained its popularity back, for its stance against the tripartite aggression on Egypt, the popularity that has soon faded away because of America’s rejection in financing the construction of the High Dam.

When the Egyptian-American relations were restored, the Egyptian people welcomed President Nixon in an unprecedented event, then Carter remained to hold a special place in the hearts of Egyptians until America’s constant bias with Israel, which has been the cause of the deterioration of the Egyptian-American Rapprochement for years.

Obama’s real rival is the image of Obama himself, people who chant for his favor may in fact chant and shout against him. Only if he decided to read history well to be able to make it again after one year has already been lost.

Sectarianism and other untold stories

2010-01-18T19:22:00.001+02:00

Never ever fear a nation which examines its actions, and refuses to buck in disclosing its faults and sins. Never ever expect any good from a nation which arrogantly insists on continuing with its mistakes and denying the obvious truth.

Yes, we have a Coptic problem! No one can deny that the crisis of confidence in relationships is the result of many historical and modern accumulations of the problem. Some of them happened by chance and some others were purposefully committed by bad intentions.

We have to confess this unfortunate reality, in order to reach the right diagnosis of the problem and put a clear vision for a remedy. Facing the problem with silence, as usual, is like conspiring to tolerate the crime, which threatens the unity and safety of our homeland. Apathy will only lead us to the painful bottom of agony.

It is our turn now to try clarifying the facts of the crisis and specify its real features and causes.

First: the relationship between sectarian tension and public tension in Egypt. Actually, most of the problems described as “Coptic” are mainly Egyptian problems that are doubled on the Copts. One of them, for instance, is the bitter feeling of the absence of justice, civil rights and equality.

Second: we have a Coptic problem related to media and education. In media, I refuse the demand of some groups to give a special immunity to Copts as much as we refuse using sectarian language in media discourse and the absence of tolerance and the culture of political and religious multiplicity.

On education, school curriculum is still incapable of understanding the real mission of education in enhancing the culture of citizenship and human rights. On his first day in office, the new Minister of Education ordered removing the training programs of human rights and citizenship from school curricula. Moreover, the current curricula are missing proper presentations of Coptic civilization, which continued for more than six centuries in Egypt. Coptic history is an essential part of our civilization; we cannot just ignore or marginalize it in our schools. This would weaken the relationship between citizens to a large degree of their inherited culture!

Third: the overwhelming feeling of injustice for Copts is the result of several factors; e.g. depriving them from occupying certain positions in state in an offensive manner. They are not valued for their patriotism or qualifications. They are classified as second degree citizens, especially in regard to leadership and political positions. Some security apparatuses do not hire Copts at all, like the State Security Bureau.

Fourth: the need for the immediate abolition of the “Hamayouni” manuscript issued in February 1856 by the Sublime Porte, as well as bizarre conditions issued by Major-General Mohamed El-Ezaby Pasha, Minister of Interior, in February 1934 regarding building churches. They should be changed into building a unified law for houses of worship in Egypt in accordance with article 46 of the Constitution, which stipulates citizens’ equal right to practicing religious rituals.

Fifth: The need to issue a number of important legislation to face the reasons behind the sectarian tensions. One of these legislation should provide a penalty for religious discrimination or disdaining religions. Another legislation should handle the personal affairs of Copts. Nevertheless, creating a unified law for building houses of worship. In addition, a new electoral system based on the proportional list should be established in order to give better chances for Copts, women, youth, and other minorities for equal representation in municipal councils, Parliament and the Shura Council.

These are some of the few proposals for the solution of this crisis!

El Ghad Denounces Violence against Christians in Nagaa Hammady

2010-01-07T18:00:00.001+02:00

El Ghad Denounces Violence against Christians in Nagaa Hammady

El Ghad Party denounces the terrorist attack against a number of Egyptian citizens which took place as they were leaving Nagaa Hamady’s Church in Quena after Christmas Mass. We see this incident which left seven dead, including the policeman in charge of securing the Church, and many injured, in the context of an accumulation of many previous incidents, which went unresolved as the perpetrators were rarely punished and the law thrown aside. This has culminated an atmosphere of lawlessness as the State failed to protect its citizens and enforce the law, instead resorting to failed political tactics.

This last tragic incident is yet another sign on the failure of a tyrannical regime and the political, social and economic consequences of corruption, oppression, incompetence and misgovernment. This should not, however, blind us from seeing a number of other alarming issues;

The gross negligence on the part of the security authorities which failed in securing this important church on Christmas day.
A rise in the culture of violence and conflict in place of tolerance, co-existence, equality and citizenship.
Abuse of religious sentiments to promote hatred instead of love, compassion and tolerance.
Failure of Egyptian Media and Educational Institutions in spreading values of tolerance and citizenship as many channels and outlets have been hijacked by extremists and fanatics.

El Ghad Party renews its constant demands to resolve these issues and address the grievances of Christian citizens and all Egyptians. El Ghad presents its liberal reform agenda as basis for coexistence, tolerance, liberty and progress.

El Ghad Party conveys its deepest sympathies and condolences to families of the victims and presents the following demands:

Swift pursuit and trial of the perpetrators.
Accountability for negligence and failure to properly secure the church.
Dismissal of the Minister of Interiors and other officials found responsible for gross negligence.
Allowing peaceful demonstrators to express their grievances in accordance with the law and the constitution.
Putting an end to failed policies of denial, cover-up and compromise which has rendered the law ineffective.

To all Egyptian citizens, El Ghad calls for resorting to reason, self-restraint, dialogue and transparency in order to resolve chronic problems of sectarian nature before it is too late

Ayman Nour: The Parallel President

2009-12-14T16:10:00.003+02:00

Ayman Nour

Freedom supporters in Egypt are urgently invited to read the following scenario, add their inputs, and get prepared: Mubarak senior or junior goes to the presidential election committee of Heliopolis district in September 2011 to submit his candidacy papers. He will not find the road clean from the supporters of other candidates, particularly the ones who the regime wants to exclude from the competition, upon illegal and undemocratic practices covered by the law.

The hypothetical scene on the morning of submitting candidacy papers, should be as follows: The headquarters of the presidential elections, which is based in a building in heliopolis, across the road from the War College, will mark the unprecedented turnout of supporters for all candidates, regardless of their political affiliations.

The supporters of El-Ghad party, in 2005 “forged” elections, were more than three quarter million of people! Some of them, in 2011, will accompany their candidate while he submits the candidacy papers. They will gather peacefully to express their opinion for the international and local public opinion.

The supporters of some independent candidates (e.g. Dr. Mohamed Elbaradie or Muslim Brotherhood candidate) or candidates of parties threatened by exclusion (e.g. El-Gabha Party) with claim that they started less than five years ago, and others will gather outside the committee headquarters to support the right of their candidates to join the race for presidential seat.

The horrible scene out there will not be the demonstrations or clashes, but the “unexpected” response to article 76 of the Egyptian Constitution, which stipulates that the candidate should be supported by at least 250 members of local municipal councils, Shoura Council, and People’s Assembly; provided that 10 of the supporters must be representing municipal councils in at least 14 governorates.

The presence of people at the election committee will not be artificial for popular pressure. It is also meant to be an execution to article 11 of law 174/2005 of organizing presidential elections; which stipulates that “supporting the candidate is allowed according to the model stated by the presidential elections committee.” In other words, the presence of supporters here is obligatory to know the model they should follow and respond to the committee.

It is also essential that the presidential committee should accept the papers of candidates regardless of the obstacles, according to articles 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of presidential elections law. The committee should announce in two daily newspapers the names of all candidates who submitted their papers even before checking their submissions to see if they meet the candidacy conditions or not. This will give an opportunity to supporters of each candidate to wait for few days outside the headquarters of the committee before the final decision is made; i.e. approval or disapproval on candidacy papers.

The whole world should see the odyssey of steadfastness and determination made by the bare hands of people who will enforce their historical right to informed choice.

[http://bikyamasr.com/?p=6730?4ba5e538 ]

Ayman Nour invites El Baradei to form a constitutional convention

2009-12-11T04:15:00.007+02:00

In his article today, Ayman Nour invites former IAEA chief, Mohamed El Baradei, to join Nour’s nation-wide door-knocking campaign. He also invites him to start a national campaign in order to establish a constitutional convention to draft a new constitution for the country. Here are the 3 basic suggestions Nour offers to El Baradei:

I invite Dr.El Baradei to participate with us, as an Egyptian reformer, in the door-knocking campaign. It started last April as a nonpartisan nationwide campaign aiming at spreading the ideas of reform and change through direct contact with the people. He is invited to lead the campaign’s second phase starting next February. In the first phase we’ve visited nearly 20 governorates and 30 major cities. The second phase will include weekly visits to the countryside population centers.
El Baradei is asked, as a law professor, to adopt a public campaign to form a national constitutional convention whose task is to draft a new constitution supported and signed by the people to achieve what we hope, and what El Baradei does, along with all political forces, for a constitution for a modern Egypt.
We call upon Dr.El Baradei to modify what was labelled in the media as ‘pre-conditions to run for presidency’ to ‘national rights and demands’.

[http://egyptdailydigest.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/daily-briefing-dec-11th-09-ayman-nour-invites-el-baradei-to-form-a-constitutional-convention/]

Ayman Nour Biography

2009-12-09T01:46:00.017+02:00

Ayman Nour

Ayman Nour was born on the 5 th of December 1964 to a father who was a lawyer and a Member of Parliament (MP) and a mother who established and supervised a number of charity projects in his birth town Mansurah.

He started his political career as a student activist during high school and University; and was elected as President for the Egyptian High School Students’ Union in 1980.

He won several awards in photography, school journalism & many other activities.

He graduated at Law School (Mansurah University) & started his career in journalism in the 80s, in one of the most famous opposition newspapers called “El Wafd” after “El Wafd Party” the oldest liberal party in Egypt. He was married to Gamila Ismail, who was a TV presenter, a political activist and who became his spokeswoman later on.

Nour's main concern was torture & corruption cases which led to his arrest & exposure to physical violence several times during his press campaigns.

Ayman Nour interviewed a number of arab world leaders like Yasser Arafat.

He wrote a number of books like “Liberalism is the solution” in 1992 compared to the famous Islamic slogan “Islam is the solution”.

He wrote as well “The Black Soldier : Zaki Badr” who was at that time the Egyptian Interior Minister.

He received his Ph.D. degree in “History of Law” from Russia in 1995. Then he ran for parliamentary elections and won to become the MP representing “El Wafd” liberal party in an electoral district in the center of Cairo called Bab el Sha’rea.

Till now he is considered the youngest member in the history of the Egyptian Parliament as he had been elected only few days after I had reached the legal age for nomination.

As a Parliament member ( 1995 – 2005 ) he exposed lots of corruption cases, proposed a large number of laws, amended & monitored many International treaties which involved Egypt , stood against random laws, supported civil rights , visited many parliaments around the world & won many awards for his honorable parliamentary performance on both national & international levels.

In 2003, he demanded a war crime trial for George W. Bush & Tony Blair for the invasion of Iraq without the UN permission.

He was re-elected for Parliament in 2000 announcing his intention for running for presidency after having 186 votes in the internal parliamentary elections (more than the third of the parliament which was in this time the main condition for being a presidential candidate) but then one year later he was dismissed from “El Wafd” party together with many of his colleagues in Parliament & began establishing their own political liberal movement called “Al Ghad” i.e. "Tomorrow" in 2003.

In 2002 he wrote a political & economical platform for Egypt’s problems in a book called (Modern Egypt in 2020) which later on became the basis for “Al Ghad party” policy.

In 2003 he launched with his fellows a large political campaign to attract Egyptian youth & society elite to political life based on the old Egyptian liberal values of “Al Ghad movement “such as “tolerance” , “human rights”, “third way free market”, while respecting Egyptian & islamic traditions.

In 2004 after a lot of pressure on the government (by thousands of founders, demonstrations & well written platforms handed to the Court ) the Egyptian government finally gave the legal license for the foundation of “Al Ghad” party (announcing in the government-controlled public media that it was an underhanded deal).

The Party then called for presidential elections instead of the old fashioned presidential referendum.

Because of his calls for constitutional reforms as regards the presidential elections, he was targeted by the Egyptian regime when 3 months later he was accused of falsifying official documents related to “Al Ghad” party.

His parliamentary immunity was terminated in a 30 minutes session & he was brutally dragged to jail while coming out of the Parliament building.

Days later President Mubarak announced constitutional reforms that will allow other candidates to run in the 2005 elections against him. So he submitted his nomination papers from inside the prison & the government released him to run for the Presidential elections.

In only 28 days, he carried out his election propaganda campaign where he visited almost all districts of Egypt holding conferences in each one. He was subjected to a heavy smear campaign by the government-controlled media & newspapers accusing him of being an American ally.

Finally he came second in the elections by officially taking 540000 votes (8%) compared to Mubarak who has been in power since 1981, who took 6 000 000 votes.

After the presidential elections he was put once again in jail in a trial described by many observers as an unfair trial under the control of a famous judge – the one who sent Dr.Saad el Din Ibrahim to prison few years before.

He was sentenced for 5 years in prison for “knowing about the falsified papers” & months later one of the imprisoned partners in this case was found hanged in his cell (was said to have committed suicide ) a day after his announcement that he had been intimidated by the State Security to force him to lie during his confession.

In prison he was forbidden all his rights including the right to communicate through writing and seeing other prisoners, even the right for health care which led to a lot of health problems later on.

In February 2009 – 4 months earlier than the date for his legal release from prison the government set him free (announcing once again that it was another deal between him & the regime ).

After being set free in 2009 he launched a new campaign called “Knocking the doors” to complete the visits he had started in 2005 to Egyptian towns & cities ,, & even to millions of Egyptians living outside Egypt in Europe , US & in the Gulf region.

Now, when he is supposed to be a free man, he is prevented from earning his living by resuming my job as a lawyer, or dealing with his bank accounts, or selling his property and finally he has been banned from traveling abroad.

Ahmed Amar comment on BikyaMasr

2009-12-07T19:27:00.002+02:00

Was a free man touring and flying in the sky, maneuvering and engage in dialogue, invalidate his intelligence on the spectrum of prey for upholding the right to
Sky country, which Amtlait corruption until he received a dream day and has the right to dream the dream,

it belongs to Falcon troublemaker contested space and the eagle in his kingdom, which occupied Bjbroch and power and tried to defend the site you Vdhaih solvency Eagle corruption and the assassination of the dreams of the rest of the birds and the determination to fight the battle

Falcon-style space-Sharif and offset Eagle all methods of deception and deceit and even highlighted by owls and crows to Inhishoa in his and did not leave a door in the deception, but it has been opened, and because a single Vhzmh Hawk Eagle of corruption and vote rigging toward economic because they do not powerless Falcon did not escape the eagle ..

commanded him to be incarcerated and isolated from the flight and the opinion of Falcon all forms of humiliation in his prison after he was a free man in outer space and prejudice against himself for a principle and the issue of Vdhaih site you want to purging of raptors Alnahph for the rights of other vulnerable birds until he came out he was sick of Aigoi the birds and because the eagle security Pferman himself and his decision to prevent Falcon Mnatahth rule space,

and the Falcon was trying to pick up desperate measures to continue flying and resisted the disease, and try again after another until recovery and when he tries to fly to the stage behind him and sends owls and crows to check on how it is measured in order to prepare him if completed healing time for elections,

the king of space every day Ivdad Falcon Guo and Ivdad number of crows that try to be thwarted by his determination and less even recovered from his illness and flew and flew and landed to the city he loves and is loved birds because he knows she loves him and interact with the birds in friendly love and discuss with them and teach them the realities of things and saw the truth of the meanings of words and committing themselves to support him as they were by his side at first and he left Falcon to return to his residence,

a joy is happy because he is supported in part by the Muslim Brotherhood ahead, if it is allowed to log on again and breathed a sigh of relief because he understood how much he is loved by birds, which supported the weak and will support him every step of the will to fly to fight Eagle hawk that Egyptian policy, Dr. Ayman Nour .. every year is a good people of Alexandria congratulates him happy birthday .. Ahmed Ammar, head of the labor movement democracy

Ayman Nour: Thank you Baradei for keeping my chasers occupied

2009-12-07T13:24:00.001+02:00

Ayman Nour

In Egypt, when you oppose the regime, you will be labeled as either ignorant, a fool, or a hypocrite! If you introduced yourself as an alternative to the head of the regime, you will be labeled as either a criminal or a murderer! Opposing gods would bring their curse and anger upon you. But opposing the regime would shed your blood, lead you to death, and make you an example to scare whoever dares to do what you have done. Opposing the regime is disliked, but competing as an alternative is a big deal that shakes the seven heavens.

When Dr. Mohamed Elbaradei released a statement on his “faraway intentions” to run for presidency seat, the heat came up higher. The pro-regime journalists and media started an immediate urgent campaign of moral assassination of Elbaradie. They started only a few hours after the statement was released. They were referring to him as a reason of pride to the country, they are laughing at him with claim that he is a stranger who spent 28 years outside Egypt. They even accused him of being a spy for the United States of America and its regional ally. Then, they started looking for the other nationalities that Elbaradei might have; some claimed American and some others claimed Swedish!

In less than a minute, the Egyptian citizen, Mohamed Elbaradei turned into half citizen, or quarter of a citizen, or a few remains of a citizen. They made him a foolish student of Botrous Ghali, untalented employee who lacks experience on internal problems of Egypt, and above all a spy to other countries abroad!

I will not commit the foolishness of the pro-regime press. I will not listen to the intense statements of state officials and regime men against Elbaradie. I can understand this horrible process of mental assassination. I have been there before!

In 2000, I announced my intention to run for presidency during a TV interviewed with my late colleague and friend Magdi Mehanna. Before that date, the state-run media outlets used to interview me, almost daily, as a patriotic opposition figure. They used me as a proof of the understanding of the regime, who would accept those who say “no” sometimes; except for gods of course!

I won 168 votes (more than one third of votes) at the internal elections of parliament in 2000, and subsequently fulfilled the provision of article 76 of the Egyptian constitution, which was amended later in 2005. As soon as I won the votes, I found myself in hell. The first burn came from El-Wafd Party which, all of a sudden, cancelled my membership and removed me from my work as a journalist in El-Wafd newspaper.

When my wife ran in the elections of the Shura Council in 2001 against the leader, the details of the new era had been already established. We faced the widest process of forgery and violence, upon the demands of the big boss, as we were told!

Suddenly, they turned me from a good citizen and a patriotic Member of Parliament for ten years into an unpatriotic person with a wealth from unsuspected sources. I wonder where this wealth they are talking about is.

In the presidential elections of 2005, the regime fabricated a naïve and funny legal case against me. The official wing of the supreme authority was directly involved, while other authority tools were busy with assassinating me in cold blood. They are not done yet!

The fools of the regime are not ashamed of spreading rumors and lies about me. They claimed that my father is not my father! They said that I escaped military service, although I am a single child. Some had great ability for imagination. They claimed that I was a soldier in the US army during Vietnam War, although I was born in 1964.

Many thanks for Dr. Elbaradei for keeping the authorities, who were chasing me for years, busy!

[http://bikyamasr.com/?p=6421 ]

Amr Hamzawy : Egypt's Opposition Misled by Fixation with Mubarak’s Son

2009-12-01T19:30:00.002+02:00

Amr Hamzawy
The National,
1 December 2009 Tuesday

Political opposition in Egypt has been stirred by a recent campaign against Gamal Mubarak, the son of the president Hosni Mubarak, becoming Egypt’s new president in 2011. In particular, Ayman Nour, a key opposition figure and a presidential candidate in 2005, has mobilised a wide spectrum of political groups to present a united front in upcoming legislative and presidential elections in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

Upon closer look, however, Mr Nour’s rallying cry is troubling. In gearing up for elections, the opposition has demonstrated a near complete inability to prioritise the issues essential to its political future, and has squandered its efforts trying to prevent Gamal Mubarak’s succession.

Egypt’s opposition groups, including both legal parties and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been in disarray since the regime introduced stifling constitutional amendments in 2007. These measures limit the oversight powers of the judiciary in elections, fail to set term limits on the presidential mandate, and ban religiously affiliated political activities.

While opposition forces have been exclusively focused on the one issue – Gamal Mubarak’s possible ascendancy – the Egyptian regime has been carefully creating an environment which will sustain its rule. The ruling elite is no newcomer to this game. They have consistently manipulated the political process by preventing the opposition from registering candidates in elections, obstructing the campaign process, and fomenting violence on election day.

In contrast to the ruling elite’s clear direction, the opposition has no guiding compass and is left wandering through the challenges posed by the political agenda in Egypt. Their failure cannot be solely attributed to the regime’s repressive measures – a great part of the responsibility belongs to the opposition parties themselves.

Since 2005, parties including the liberal Wafd party, Ayman Nour’s Ghad party and the Democratic Front, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood (which is banned but has de facto representation in parliament) have all failed in two major tasks: formulating an elections platform and clear vision for Egypt’s political development, and applying sufficient pressure on the regime for political and economic reform.

Despite its acquisition of an unprecedented 88 parliamentary seats in the 2005 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood has yet to push for serious reform of the political system. Several concerns also remain unresolved in Egyptian and international public opinion regarding the Brotherhood’s positions on equal citizenship rights for Copts and Muslims, women’s participation in politics and freedom of expression.

The opposition parties urgently need to tackle several issues to position themselves for the 2010 and 2011 elections. First, groups have to clarify their stance on the question of domestic and international monitoring of elections. Especially with regard to the latter, the opposition remains divided.

Second, they have to prioritise calls for the abolition of the emergency law in effect in Egypt since 1981. Finally, parties should be more attuned to new political opportunities, expanding grassroots activities to capitalise on growing protest sentiment among wide segments of the population who are suffering from deteriorating social and economic conditions.

With Egypt’s declining GDP growth, the unemployment rate reaching 10.3 per cent, a poverty rate of 20 per cent, and an alarming level of debt – 76 per cent of GDP – citizens are in desperate need of competent political parties.

The implications of the upcoming elections will, of course, extend beyond Egypt’s borders. In light of the regime’s recent political manoeuvring and the opposition’s stagnation, the 2010 and 2011 elections in Egypt will test the Obama administration’s stance on democracy in the Middle East. Its position will either demonstrate a commitment to the incumbent regime of the Mubaraks as a strategic ally in a turbulent region regardless of its domestic behaviour, or signal pressure to create better conditions for democratic reform and political competition in Egypt.

The first signals from the Obama administration are not encouraging; the administration has so far put the promotion of democracy low on its list of priorities. Washington has only raised the issue of reform in the context of concessions that Mr Mubarak has already made. The Obama administration has also cut aid to numerous actors and organisations in civil society.

The campaign organised by Mr Nour is a step in the right direction for the opposition in Egypt, but he and other activists would be wise to adjust their agenda. Only by letting go of their obsession with Gamal Mubarak’s succession and addressing other issues at the core of the upcoming elections can opposition groups counter the regime’s hegemony.

Ayman Nour: A visit to Gaza

2009-11-30T00:50:00.008+02:00

Ayman Nour

After the conclusion of the official reception of my trip with Amr Mousa to Gaza on the occasion of opening the first session of the Palestinian National Council, I received an invitation from a Palestinian Member of Parliament to attend a meeting at the Social Club of Gaza. His name, as far as I remember was Hamadah El-Fara’ena.

In that meeting, I was introduced to a high profile group of Palestinian leaders who belong to the Intifada generation. The most prominent among them were Marawan Barghouthy from the Fatah movement, Abdul Khalek Al Natshah from Hamas, in addition to some other independent political activists.

In the meeting, I had a feeling that I am seeing a different Palestine, unlike the one I left in despair at Arafat’s house, which I sneaked out of to attend the activists’ meeting. There, I saw a real image of the fire burning inside Palestine! I was transformed from a cold conversation at Arafat’s house about personal memories on public and private meetings and phone calls to a real hot debate on the future of Palestine, criticizing the newborn presidency, constitution, and Oslo 1993.

I was an eyewitness to the exchange of serious accusations between liberal and independent leaders. They mentioned the absence of transparency and democracy. They were preoccupied by the involvement of the Palestinian Authority with the ill mechanisms of building the state via importing the worst examples of ruling regimes in the Arab world. They did not want individualism, monopoly, and corruption to be the pillars of establishing the newborn state. They also had big doubts regarding the injustice of diplomatic developments.

The representatives of Hamas, in the meeting, discussed the fragile balance indicated in Oslo and described it as a “domination peace!” This term stole my ears and I could not forget it until I read it again in Raymond Irawan’s book Paixet Guenne Entx Leanationa in 2004.

I saw the power of the Intifada removing the accumulated clouds of division and weakness in the sky of Palestinian national unity. It strengthened hope in reaching a comprehensive and unified solution.

Israel succeeded in planting a burning cord into the powder keg, by involving Arafat, and later, Abbas, into transformational phases, which gave the Israeli side more space to impose a negative rhythm on the development of social movements. They ran into signing conventions based on the logic of steps and testing the ability of the newborn authority to guarantee Israel security – or rather, suppressing Islamist radicals and secularists.

The internal crisis of Palestine cannot be reduced to the conflict between Fattah and Hamas, or illusionary (made in USA) groups of “moderates” and “extremists.” This is a mere echo of the naïve division of the world into the “Empire of Good” and the “Empire of Evil” by Reagan in his infamous Orlando Florida speech to the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983. The same concept came to the surface once again by Bush after the September 11 attacks.

My evidence on the inaccuracy of this reduction of the internal Palestinian crisis to a conflict between moderates and extremists is that the majority of Palestinian politicians who participated in the aforementioned meeting are in jail, now.

If we look into the “Prisons” Initiative launched by Marawan Barghouthy of Fatah and Abdul Khalek Al Natshah of Hamas, we realize that the Palestinian-Palestinian conflict is not a conflict between moderation and extremism. It is a conflict between two views of managing a homeland which is not found yet.

[http://bikyamasr.com/?p=6187 ]

Ayman Nour: Human dignity in Egypt

2009-11-22T13:49:00.001+02:00

Ayman Nour

Like cows, chickens, rabbits and ants, the blood of Egyptian people is cheap, and their dignity is valueless. Why Egyptians were insulted in the Gulf, died in Iraq, and got abused in Libya, Lebanon and most recently beaten in Sudan? Why harming an Egyptian is a crime without punishment; an easy action with no reaction?

Is it because we are good, sensitive, and religious? Like soda, we rise up in a moment and calm down in the next moment! Is it because we are a nation of giving without limitations and taking nothing, eating nothing, having no place to sleep, or live and then thank God for the grace?

The physical attack by some Algerians against Egyptians in Sudan, last week, is not an incident, but a result of many previous incidents in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, and Jordan. Why, then, should we be so angry against Algeria?

Why should we be so angry against any of those who insulted us? Absolutely, it is our fault and not their mistake. We have lost our honor when we gambled on the sincerity of others and forgot to preserve our dignity within our homeland.

Wherever you go in the Arab world, hurtful words are poured like dirty water over our heads accompanied by the tales of Egyptian labor without any reaction from our embassies, which always take disgusting and shameful stance towards such insult.

Speaking of Egypt as the big sister and the heart of the Arab world is nothing but verbal eloquence, which today’s world cannot understand. The discourse of the weight of Egypt no longer exists. Egyptian weight is measured by its political and economic power. It is measured by neither its huge population nor the years of service and long age of its president.

The powerful and the rich are the real rulers of this era. They can force the whole world to respect them, regardless of the rules of national compassion, the similarity of blood type, and the relationship to the descent Sibawayh.

It does not matter at all; the amendments made by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior on the Egyptian passport, by making it lighter, smaller, and well protected against falsification. The fact that this passport represents prestige and respect in the eyes of others is what really matters. That is if the Egyptian people seeking dignity can find it in their homeland first.

Egyptian communities abroad reflect the situation in their homeland. If the Egyptian citizen is beaten and insulted in his own homeland, what should we expect from strangers, even if those strangers hold the same religious beliefs, the same language, and the same historical background? The Egyptian has gradually turned into a half human, quarter human, and then the remains of a human! And, the remains have no value in the eyes of others.

Egypt is dwelled in by weevils from head to toe and is almost falling down due to its failure in different activities: education, poverty, despotism, and corruption. We no longer have a way-out to save Egypt and Egyptians’ reputation and dignity. Instead, we should burn fire in the forest of weevils, and await the birth of a new tree.

When we are ruled by King «Sun» or Louis IX, who believes that everything in this country is his property, there will be nothing valuable in the country except the king himself. Then, long live the king, and hell takes the rest.

[http://bikyamasr.com/?p=5947]

Ayman Nour: Video Message on Middle Eastern Democracy

2009-11-18T16:39:00.001+02:00

Ayman Nour: Video Message on Middle Eastern Democracy from National Endowment for Democracy on Vimeo.

Ayman Nour: Public Prosecutor is not Independent, Mr. Aboul Gheit

2009-11-15T13:51:00.003+02:00

Ayman Nour

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, committed a fallacy while commenting on the Public Prosecutor’s decision to prevent me from traveling to the U.S. last week. He stated that “the prosecutor’s decision has nothing to do with the Egyptian government!” Apparently, Aboul Gheit does not know that the Public Prosecutor of Egypt is affiliated with the Egyptian government, not another country. The Public Prosecutor’s office is an essential part of the executive authority headed by President Mubarak, who assigns the public prosecutor via a presidential decree.

Aboul Gheit’s statements from Sharm El-Sheikh encouraged opening a thorny file to answer the critical questions: Does the Egyptian public prosecutor truly represent the social structure including its sectors, parties and various forces? Is the public prosecutor, merely, a crown of the executive authority with its one political color and one party? Is the public prosecutor biased in fulfilling the direct and indirect demands of the head of the executive authority on the expense of the social structure, which the public prosecutor represents?

First of all, let’s examine the mechanism of selecting the Public Prosecutor in Egypt. Despite his unlimited powers, the public prosecutor is not selected or nominated by the General Assembly of the Cassation Court. In other countries across the world, the public prosecutor is hired by the Cassation Court and is usually given a judicial role. In Egypt, it is quite different. In Egypt, article 119 of Law 142/2006 stipulates the necessity of the approval of the Supreme Council of Judiciary on the selection of the Public Prosecutor, Assistant Public Prosecutor, Attorney General, and other members of the Public Prosecution. However, the President of the state – who is also the head of the executive authority – selects the Public Prosecutor with a presidential decree, with complete disregard to the aforementioned approval of Supreme Council of Judiciary.

This statuesque emphasizes the absolute power of the head of the executive committee to hire whoever he wants in this very critical position. Subsequently, neutrality and independence is absent. There is controversy around some cases in the Mubarak era. The most prominent is hiring Councilor Ragae’i El-Arabi, in 1991, as a Public Prosecutor, on the backdrop of his work in the “politically motivated” State Security Prosecution. He was selected for the vital position despite the long line of worthy older names. Another controversial case was that of Maher Abdul Wahed, who did not serve at the Cassation Court or at least as an Assistant Prosecutor or an Attorney General! In one day, he moved from an administrative job at the executive authority, as Assistant Minister of Justice to be the Public Prosecutor!

The Public Prosecutor is not only hired according to the sole order of the head of the executive authority, but was also fired in the same way until recently! The unusual general assembly of Alexandria Judges Club made a resolution to amend article 67 of Law 46/1972 with the purpose to give the Public Prosecutor immunity against dismissal. Yet, this immunity does not mean independence under the applied policies of carrots and sticks!

In Egypt, the absence of neutrality and independence is not limited to selecting the Public Prosecutor. However, they are extended to the roles of the whole judiciary system, including its administrative and financial independence. The Minister of Justice – who is also a member of the executive authority – interferes in the work of the Public Prosecutor. This proves the lack of independence claimed by Aboul Gheit.

Article 62 of Law 46/1972 entitles the Minister of Justice to delegate the members of the Public Prosecution to do additional tasks in different administrative authorities upon monetary compensations. The administrative authority which receives the deputized public prosecutor can dismiss him at any moment. Again, this carrot and stick policy violates the claimed independence of the Public Prosecutor and other members of the Public Prosecution. One of the most flagrant examples is deputizing prosecution members to State Security Affairs, which approves the verdicts and sentences ordered by Emergency Court, which falls under the direct control of both the President of the State, as the military ruler, and the Prime Minister, as the vice military ruler.

During the past few years, the executive authority delegated the members of the Public Prosecution and the assistants of the Minister of Justice to supervise judicial inspection of various prosecutions, the technical office of the Public Prosecutor, heads of Appeal Court and General Attorney office.

The structural independence of the Public Prosecution is also systematically violated. This can be proved by the huge difference between formal legal allotments and actual payments in the form of annual salaries. Since 2004, the margin of difference reached to 234,649,782.2 LE. This huge difference is abused by the executive authority, which has the absolute power of giving or deducting according to the level of obedience by the Public Prosecution.

Other blatant examples of violations include preventing me from traveling and earning my living, monitoring and spying on my private communications, and most importantly refusing to execute legal verdicts for the El-Ghad Party and myself. This is a severe, shameful, double standard policy in the time of unashamed tyranny!

[http://bikyamasr.com/?p=5772 ]

Egyptian Activist Nour Presses For More Rights in Political Process

2009-11-11T23:41:00.002+02:00

Ayman Nour giving interview to VOA (03 Jun 2009)

Egyptian authorities recently banned opposition leader Ayman Nour from traveling to the United States where he was invited to speak to several organizations. While Egyptian authorities say the ban is lawful, Nour's supporters say it is the latest in a series of moves aimed at marginalizing opposition groups ahead of next year's parliamentary elections.

Ayman Nour, the main challenger to President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential election in 2005, is no stranger to political pressure.

He founded the opposition el Ghad party, created to represent a liberal democratic perspective, with a strong interest in human rights. Nour used the party as a platform to call for constitutional reform, limiting the president's powers and opening presidential elections to multiple candidates.

The opposition leader was recently blocked by Egyptian authorities from traveling to the United States to attend conferences at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and other groups.

The U.S. State Department has called on the Egyptian government to reconsider its ban.

Nour says he has been barred from teaching at any state universities. He says he cannot access his bank accounts and cannot participate as a candidate in any elections. He was also jailed shortly after the 2005 elections on charges of forgery and spent over three years in prison before being released in February in what he describes as a ploy to get him out of politics.

Egyptian authorities say the travel ban was a condition of his early release from prison. Nour disagrees. A lawyer by profession, he says he knows his rights and is not giving up.

He says that opposing political corruption, particularly the kind of corruption he's seen after the elections and since his arrest, is not a choice, but a duty.

Cairo University professor and member of the ruling National Democratic Party's advisory committee Mohamed Kamal rejects Nour's claims and says the politician has plenty of freedom.

"I think there is some exaggeration in these accusations," Kamal said. "Ayman Nour is free to engage in whatever campaign he wants to engage in. He has access to the people. He has access to the media. Maybe the question he doesn't ask himself is whether this cause that he carries the flag (for) is popular among Egyptians or not."

Other opposition groups say they, too, are hampered in their attempts to participate openly in Egyptian political life. Not far from Kamal's office, Muslim Brotherhood students at Cairo University protest moves they say are aimed at keeping them out of the student union elections.

On the national level, the Muslim Brotherhood are banned from officially putting forth candidates for election. The Egyptian constitution forbids political parties based on religion. The group has done well despite the law, with 88 members who ran as independents now in parliament.

According to Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Akram Shaar, there are concerted efforts by the ruling party to keep opposition groups at bay.

He says everyone ranging from opposition groups, the mainstream and everyday honest citizens who love their country are prevented from taking part in a true and open dialogue. He said they are also prevented from taking part in elections and from having their opinions heard.

In a wider effort to keep up pressure on Egypt's ruling party, Nour joined forces with the Muslim Brotherhood and several other opposition groups to launch a campaign called Did Al-Wirasa, meaning "against inheritance." Its name is a reference to the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, head of the National Democratic Party's policies committee, who is widely seen as being groomed to take over from his father.

Nour says that it is every citizen's right to choose and to be a part of the country's decision-making process. He says the new campaign is aimed at curbing any decisions taken without the people's vote. Nour says people want to choose who rules them.

81-year-old President Mubarak, who has been in power for 28 years, has yet to say if he will seek another six-year term in office. Likewise, his son has not announced his plans. But many believe that what takes place in next year's parliamentary elections will set the tone for what happens in the 2011 presidential vote.

[http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-11-11-voa21-69822552.html ]

Ayman Nour: Egypt opposition versus the government

2009-11-08T13:56:00.002+02:00

Ayman Nour

Egypt is the land of wonders. The first anniversary of the burning the headquarters of the el-Ghad Party coincides with the fifth anniversary of establishing it. I am astonished by the ability of those involved in burning my office to keep their self respect! I wonder how they dare to look right into the eyes of their children, spouses, and the whole of Egyptian society. I dare them to look into my eyes. No matter how mean and liars they are, they cannot stand long.

Some of the criminals, who committed the attack and the burning, claimed that they were in a “nonviolent” protest on Emergency Law. Others claimed that the purpose of the “nonviolent” rally was to condemn the allies of the US and the agents of Israel. Ironically, the leaders of the rally are mentioned on the CIA website. Some Egyptian newspapers – including the al-Wafd daily – condemned this already. At the same moment, this so-called “unbeatable fighter” who claims that his rally is against Israel was mentioned in Israeli media as an expected visitor after signing a business agreement with an Israeli agriculture company. One of the experts from this Israeli agriculture company is working at his office.

Egypt is the only country in the world where the ruling party selects its opposition groups and assigns its rivals. If they like an opposition activist, they will give him a license to launch an “opposition” party. If they dislike him later, they throw him in prison for years; sometimes for the same license they previously gave to him!

When Mostafa Kamal Helmy became the director of the Parties’ Affairs Committee, he infected it with some of his characteristics as a former teacher. PAC now applies the rule: good manners are preferred to intellectuality. I doubt that, one day, we might find a sub-line on the banner of the PAC reading: “discipline, pruning, and reform!” Currently, Pac director is the Secretary General of the ruling National Democratic Party. The members of PAC are the pro-regime officials from the ministries of Interior, Justice, etc. In case this committee rejected your request, you can yearn to the “Court of Parties,” which is run by judges, NDP members, and high profile governmental officials. If the PAC does not notify you with its decision, they have the right to put you in jail at any minute. Simply, the materials you submit are usually used as proof of you violating the law, in case they refused your request. If the committee chooses not notify you or send you to prison, they can plant thorns in your head. They send you someone who barely knows something about efforts you made for establishing your party and let him claim that he is a “partner” and even worse drag you down into a conflict of the leadership of your own party! Then, you find yourself obliged to prove owning a right of your own. This is the most successful strategy the government uses to exhaust you and sometimes cripple you, if you wanted to practice real opposition politics.

The judiciary cannot be of any help. If you file a claim, you have to wait for many years. If you wait and respect the rules until you finally have a verdict, the PAC still keeps the right to validate this verdict or not, and you have to wait for another supporting verdict to the first verdict. You can hold as many public conferences as you can, and the committee still keeps the right to pay attention or disregard you at all. This happens all the time in Egypt.

Egyptian political parties are either unauthorized, banned, or terrified from losing their license. The El-Ghad Party is a living example to this horrible disorder. Only 89 days after establishing the El-Ghad party, the PAC decided to solve the situation by imprisoning its leader and founder.

However, this did not lead to the results they were looking for, as we ranked second in the presidential election. Thus, the committee decided to shake us! One week after the presidential elections, they started the shaking game, but we stood strong in the face of the earthquake. Hence, the regime and its PAC decided to apply a new strategy: genocide. They arrested young members, besieged our activities, banned the party newspaper, and burnt its headquarters.

When will the regime and the so-called Parties Affairs Committee realize that political parties are not born by governmental decisions or killed by anonymous fires?

[Cited]

EGYPT: Activist Ayman Nour blasts authorities for travel ban

2009-11-05T20:15:00.007+02:00

EGYPT: Activist Ayman Nour blasts authorities for travel ban

November 5, 2009 | 6:45 am

Opposition leader Ayman Nour has attacked the ruling regime after he was barred from traveling to the United States, where he was invited to speak about Egypt's political climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Nour and a number of Egyptian politicians, including Gamal Mubarak -- a top official in the ruling National Democratic Party and the son of President Hosni Mubarak -- were invited to the Carnegie event. Nour said he is convinced that his travel ban was intended to prevent anti-government figures from spoiling Gamal Mubarak's trip.

"Mubarak's son wants the lion's share of the Egyptian political sphere, whether that is inside or outside the country," Nour said. "But I will not give him such pleasure, and I will take part in the Carnegie seminar through video conferences."

The founder and former head of El Ghad opposition party, who was also planning to take part in a number of conferences organized by the Egyptian community in the U.S., previously said that the Egyptian public prosecutor had issued an administrative decision preventing him from going to the U.S. and other nations in the Middle East and Europe.

Gamal Mubarak is being groomed to succeed his father, a scenario resented by many Egyptians who have suffered under the government's economic programs and repressive human-rights policies and don’t want a Mubarak dynasty. Nour and fellow opposition activists and parties recently formed a coalition under the slogan Mayehkomsh ("You don't have the right to rule"), rejecting any succession plan.

After losing to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's first contested elections in 2005, Nour was sentenced to five years in prison on what are widely regarded as trumped-up charges of forging signatures in order to establish El Ghad party. He was released on health grounds in February and since then has only been allowed to leave the country to receive healthcare abroad.

Nour, who has been touring Egyptian cities to interact with citizens and demonstrate his political vision over the last few months, can't run in the 2011 presidential elections because of his earlier conviction.

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

I Reject Anti-Semitism and Respect Egypt's Pluralism

2009-11-02T17:43:00.003+02:00

Published on Wall Street Journal

Monday, November 2, 2009

The authors of "Why Are Egypt's Liberals Anti-Semitic?" (op-ed, Oct. 26), Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros, quote me at a conference I was invited to attend in the city of Port Said, Egypt shortly after my release from prison after contesting President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections.

I would like to clarify a few points regarding the statements attributed to me in the article. First, neither myself nor my party, El-Ghad, were the organizers of this forum. I was invited to attend in my personal capacity, and to make a short statement. I was not responsible for any graffiti or items placed on the banners in the conference.

Furthermore, my statements referred specifically to Israel's conduct during the Gaza war, which in my opinion was highly objectionable.

I was distraught over the excessive loss of civilian life in Gaza, and I regret that my comments were expressed in a way that was unclear and that may have understandably offended.

Anyone examining my record can easily discern that I have always supported and upheld Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and have strongly opposed calls of aggression against Israel.

I have also consistently called for a peaceful and just resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict. I gave a recent interview published in Commentary magazine where I stated, "El-Ghad supports every treaty made by Egypt before and will keep it going. We want to ensure peace with every country in the world."

I would like to conclude that the "anti-Semitic" label is one that I strongly reject. My critiques pertain to the conduct of the state of Israel in certain contexts and not to the Jewish people as a whole. The history of Egypt is replete with contributions from Jewish Egyptians, and that history of pluralism that once defined Egypt is one that I recall fondly and deeply respect.

Principles of religious pluralism and mutual respect and tolerance are principles that I strongly advocate not just in my position as a political activist, but as a human being.

Ayman Nour

Ayman Nour "Attacked" in Hurghada

2009-10-26T12:38:00.002+02:00

Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour's troubles with the authorities continue. Over the weekend he was allegedly attacked by security forces and National Democratic Party operatives in the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada. The linked report says he was at a restaurant with an American filmmaker, and the US may have intervened to free him.

Now that he's made himself the spokesman of the Stop Gamal movement, he'll be even more of as lightning rod drawing attention from the authorities.

[Cited]

An apology from Ayman Nour

2009-10-24T12:07:00.003+02:00

Ayman Nour

On Tuesday, October 27, Egyptian anti-succession dissidents will hold a press conference at the Center for Socialist Studies. The event will be sponsored by Opinion Prisoners Committee, headed by our colleague Mohamed Abdul Quddus. We will announce a common stance of support to freedoms and opinion Prisoners. In addition, we will explain to the public how this injustice is related to the catastrophe of the expected inheritance of the presidency in our country.

While thinking of my speech tomorrow, I feel an urgent need to apologize for my disability to help our brothers: opinion detainees and prisoners of conscience. On the top of the list are Magdy Ahmed Hussein, Gamal Heshmat, Mosa’ad Abu Fager, and a dozen other names! I think we owe an apology to every single detainee in Egypt, regardless of their affiliation or background. We owe an apology to every Egyptian citizen who was deprived his right to be interrogated by his natural judge as well as those who were sentenced by a “pre-adjusted” judge. We owe a double apology, though, to “civil” citizens who were put to trial by a “military” court. Regardless of the results, either reasonable or shocking, the procedures require an apology; not only to those prisoners and their families but also to every one who paid a heavy price for our disability to purify our country from this shameful injustice.

An Indian leader once said “the history witnessed that when tyranny increases, the authority cracks down on truth and freedom through using courts to remove away whoever stands for them! The might of the judiciary could be used, equally, for applying justice or injustice! Under a fair government, the judiciary would enhance justice and truth. Under an oppressive government, the judiciary would be the fatal machine of oppression and revenge! History tells us that court rooms have been, in many occasions, noxious stages for quiet brutality, even worse than the brutality of war. In battle fields and court rooms – alike – many innocent souls were lost and unlimited number of rights was taken!”

I think I owe a special apology on each day of the ten years I spent as Member of Parliament, for not condemning the dangerous gaps of our legislation, which allows for applying injustice under the fake mask of justice! I should have investigated the tricky texts of Egyptian law, which stand between a citizen and his natural judge. Such texts were and are still used to punish thinkers and intellectuals instead of criminals and murderers, who usually go without punishment or even sometimes without accountability.

From the same room which produced article 6 for Military Trials, which allows putting civilians to military tribunals, other unfair articles were produced, such as: article 9 of the Emergency Law 162/1958, which entitles the president of the state to transform the crimes punishable under public law to a “State Security Court.” Other examples include the December 13, 1953, decision of establishing Revolution Courts, and Law 344/ 1952 of establishing “Betrayal Courts,” followed by Values Court, Parties Court, etc. All are forms of tyranny and violations to citizen’s right to be tried by his natural judge.

Those laws are perfectly tailored to prevent citizens from recognizing their judge before being taken to court. Sometimes, the heads of courts commit an absolute violation of human rights by changing the geographical distribution of judges and provinces. The unfair law entitles them to send a particular case to some other province and judge. We suffer the worst form of justice administration in this country. The administration of justice is not related to the core concept of justice or the judiciary system. It is, however, a technical expression used by those interested in applying justice as a basic right to all.

Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Egypt is a signatory, stipulates the criteria for the fair administration of justice. ICCPR has become an integral part of Egyptian law since April 14, 1982. Yet, when a civil citizen is sent to a military tribunal, or loses his right to go through the different levels of trials; i.e. primary, appeal and cassation courts, thus investigating the rights guaranteed by such stipulation are useless.

We urgently need to re-build the whole system of justice administration in Egypt to guarantee the actual independence of prosecutor, separating the authority of transforming cases and the authority of investigation, removing exceptional judiciary, and using natural judges who are not usually selected upon mere rules of the blinded justice.

[Cited]

Egypt: 29 years between a president and his heir

2009-10-17T00:00:00.001+02:00

Ayman Nour

President Mubarak made his first Presidential oath on October 14, 1981. He swore to observe the interests of the country. He said “I” and did not mention “I and my son after me” in his oath. Three days ago, Mubarak completed his 29th year as president of Egypt. Let’s, then, qualify the statuesque in Egypt after 29 years under Mubarak – Mubarak senior! I dedicate this article to the youth of the April 6 movement, who are going to hold a parallel conference to the annual conference of the National Democratic Party (NDP) at the end of this month.

Egypt lives in a chaos of “reversed” selections. The best items are expelled out and the worst items are kept in. Hypocrites and corrupt members are taken to the top.

There is a case of doubled general failure every where. “Zero” has become the slogan of the current phase of Egyptian history, in all fields.

High prices of basic commodities and various costs of living are exaggerated in a most unprecedented way in history!

More than half of the Egyptian people live under the poverty line. They cannot earn their daily living.

Public health is deteriorating daily thanks to the pesticides, poisoned substances in the air and water, corruption, poverty, pollution and life’s pressures.

Free health services are getting worse. Providing proper medication has become the responsibility, not of the country, but of the patients who can pay for it.

Corruption is controlling every single activity inside the state, from the highest level of the regime to the lowest levels. Systematic stealing is happening everywhere.

Bribes became the only way for citizens to have their rights given, their interests satisfied, and their legal permits taken, and their day moving smoothly.

Nepotism and favoritism have become the ideal gateway to having anything done.

Education is getting worse; both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Parents are doubly burdened by the responsibility of supporting their children with private lessons or parallel education classes, particularly after the appearance of Swine Flu.

Unemployment is killing the ambitions of fresh graduates and young people who have lost their hope in the future for themselves and for their country.

The number of those who commit suicide at a young age is increasing out of their feeling of social injustice.

The marriage age is increasing and unmarried youth and “custom” marriage have become a rampant phenomena of the Egyptian society.

The number of the crimes for immoral behavior, homosexuality and whoredom is increasing.

The social texture is dissolving. The divorce rate in Egyptian society is reaching unexpected and unprecedented levels.

Unjustified violence and crimes of robbery and murder are happening at higher rates.

The traditional values of Egyptian society are vanishing. The morals and behavior of Egyptian society is changing to the negative.

Egyptian youth are seeking illegal migration, despite the high risk, which was not the case before. Hundreds of Egyptian youth died while trying to get out of Egypt through the sea!

Egyptian youth who could not do illegal migration to other countries, made another migration into themselves. Some ran to drugs, some ran to extremism and some ran to the glories of the past.

Egypt has become a big prison; its bars are the impossibility of life with dignity.

Egypt is witnessing the illegal marriage between power and money. Corruption is wasting the credibility of the so-called reformists and their claimed reforms.

Egypt is no longer the gift of the Nile. Egypt has become the gift of the monopoly of everything: monopoly of power, economy, businesses, and rights.

Justice has disappeared on legal and moral levels. The sense of tyranny and injustice is everywhere.

Egypt is going through a general case of a slow death caused by the eternity of officials on their seats, and even worse inheritance of these seats.

The police state is controlling different forms of life in Egypt. Police logic has become the governing rule of all state offices.

Laws were turned into a means to support tyranny, suppression and corruption via a false majority in Parliament.

Hypocrisy and lying are controlling different forms of life here. Beautifying the failure, decorating the ugly, and justifying the wrong are now the official behavior of the state.

The official media in Egypt has become the personal property of the president, his family and his party. This has increased people’s sense of alienation inside their country.

The above symptoms are only one part of the real image of Egypt’s sufferings at the beginning of the 29th year of President Mubarak in office. Those are the symptoms of a number of fatal diseases that include: totalitarianism, individual rule, lack of transparency, lack of power exchanges, lack of judicial independence, election fraud and the monopoly of power.

We should not accept our country to be inherited by those who are still putting their knife on our neck! Now is the time to put an end to this very long and absurd black comedy!

[Cited]

EGYPT: Opposition forms anti-succession coalition

2009-10-16T06:42:00.001+02:00

Opposition leaders and political parties have started a new front to challenge the prospect that President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, an untested politician with limited domestic and international experience, will succeed in the 2011 elections.

Talk of succession has gripped the country in recent months as Gamal Mubarak's profile has risen, including a trip to Washington with his 81-year-old father. Gamal is an influential voice in the ruling National Democratic Party. But many Egyptians, who have suffered under the government's economic programs and repressive human rights policies, don't want the presidency kept in the Mubarak family.

The new front took the name "Mayehkomsh" -- Egyptian slang for "You don’t have the right to rule" -- as its slogan. The question, however, remains: How can a disparate group of opposition parties successfully come together to challenge a police state that has pressured them for years with intimidation and arrests?

The anti-succession coalition, initiated by former presidential candidate and founder of El Ghad party, Ayman Nour, gained momentum in a conference held Wednesday among representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya), the Democratic Front, the Egyptian Communist party, and the Justice and Development party.

"This is a campaign to confront this irregular and illogical state, where a president-in-waiting is practicing all the duties of the president already," Nour said at the conference. "Our constitution is for a republic, not a kingdom," he said.

Hassan Nafee, a professor of political science at Cairo University, was chosen to be general coordinator of the campaign. "Fighting the succession is only part of a bigger project targeting the establishment of a democratic ruling system," Nafee said.

Nour, who was runner-up to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's first contested elections, in 2005, received a five-year imprisonment in December of that year after the government accused him of forging signatures in order to establish his party. He was released on health grounds in February this year and has been strongly calling for democratic reforms and fighting succession plans. He can't run in the next elections because of his earlier conviction.

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Photo: Ayman Nour during the conference. Credit: AFP

Anti-establishment in Egypt: the return of Ayman Nour

2009-10-11T17:00:00.002+02:00

The one-time presidential candidate is among dissidents who won't be silenced, despite the government's efforts prior to 2011 elections.

By Theodore May - GlobalPost

Published: October 11, 2009 08:34 ET

CAIRO, Egypt — We had just finished Round One of an intense interview with Ayman Nour. The 2005 runner-up for the Egyptian presidency, who subsequently spent three years in jail, slipped out for a cigarette on the rooftop of his opulent Cairo apartment before heading inside to resume his interview with GlobalPost.

Halfway to his seat, though, he stopped and beckoned me to come close.

“You asked me about torture,” he said, referencing a question I had asked him about his imprisonment. “I didn’t want to talk much about it, because I didn’t want to upset my son.”

But with his son out of the room, Nour rolled up the leg of his well-tailored suit. His ghostly white leg was pocked with deep black-and-blue marks that he said were left by the chains his guards used to bound him.

“And I’m not going to show you my back,” he said in a near-whisper.

In a second, the moment had passed, and Nour sunk back into his chair, ready for more questioning.

Such is life for this most high-profile of Egypt’s political dissidents.

The years 2004 and 2005 represented what the deputy Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam Al-Aryan calls the “spring of semi-democracy,” with Nour running a robust campaign for the presidency — he won 9 percent of the vote — and the Muslim Brotherhood picking up 20 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament.

Now, though, with parliamentary elections looming next year and presidential elections slated for 2011, the government looks eager to shore up its primacy by clamping down aggressively on political opposition.

But the government is finding foes in every corner of the political spectrum. Islamists, liberal democrats, socialists and more have been fighting for a voice.

While the government has used the legal system to hamper the opposition’s efforts, harassment and detention seem to be the tools of choice.

If arrests are any indication, the Muslim Brotherhood is the government’s biggest worry. Just last week, security forces scooped up 12 members of the group. On Saturday, the government arrested 24 more members. More than 300 now languish in jail, according to Al-Aryan, most charged with belonging to a banned group.

“All Muslim Brotherhood now are waiting for arrest,” he said. “Tens of thousands of people are Muslim Brothers. They live under such tensions … And of course it is a message in preparation for the upcoming elections.”

“Now, for any Muslim Brother, prison is a second home,” quipped Al-Aryan, who says he has been arrested eight times over 30 years, including three times between 2005 and 2007. He claims to have been tortured twice.

The government denies that the arrests are political. And it leans on the judiciary to back up its claim.

"The defendant can say whatever he wants to say to defend himself. That's his constitutional right," said Mohamed Quita, a member of parliament from the ruling party. In reference to Nour, he added: "But the fair judicial system has had its word. And they were convicted of their crimes, which shows it was not political, and these allegations have no basis in truth."

The government also denies the torture charges. According to Quita, his party has visited prisons investigated the charges but "didn't find any trail of torture."

While the Muslim Brotherhood has been around since before the founding of the Republic of Egypt, the government has had to start dealing with a new threat: bloggers.

The blogosphere in Egypt first became politicized on a massive scale in the wake of political unrest in 2005. Since then, their numbers have grown by the tens of thousands.

Unlike in some countries, the security forces, led by the Interior Ministry’s cyber crime division, don’t shut down websites critical of the government. They go after the writers.

“I would say this is the pattern,” said Hossam el-Hamalawy, one of Egypt’s most prominent bloggers. “It’s either phone up, threaten them, [or] stop them at the airport when they come. But we didn’t reach the level of, say, Tunisia,” where the government cracks down aggressively, banning people from the web or hacking their websites.

Many of these bloggers, though, are also street activists, protesting various government practices. It is in this context that many of them are arrested. El-Hamalawy is a socialist whose blog takes aim at the government’s labor practices. He says he was arrested and tortured in 2000 (before he started his blog) for tearing down the American flag that flew over the American University in Cairo. He has been arrested twice subsequently.

Part of the threat that bloggers pose to the government, he believes, is that they break stories of political or military abuse that conventional newspapers won’t.

He added that local print reporters have been known to feed controversial stories to bloggers so that they can report on the blog coverage instead of on the story itself.

Despite the crackdown, it’s remarkable that many of these political dissidents, who hail from all ends of the political spectrum, continue to lead life in the public eye.

El-Hamalawy serves as an editor at one of the country’s pre-eminent newspapers.

Al-Aryan works out of his office at the doctor’s syndicate in downtown.

Nour, who was unexpectedly released from jail early this year, has launched a grassroots political campaign called “Knocking on Doors.” As leader of the Ghad party, he goes door to door across the country, extolling the virtues of liberal democracy.

If his group tries to set up formal events, he says, security forces shut them down ahead of time. But they still let him go door to door and spread his message quietly.

“We can’t hold conferences,” he said. “We can’t own any newspapers or visual media. We are prevented from using any means of communications. The only right that they can’t prevent us from doing is our right to walk on our feet in the streets.”

Ayman Nour : Succession vs. the ‘black room’

2009-10-10T00:10:00.003+02:00

Ayman Nour

On Wednesday, October 14, a group of sincere activists and opposition leaders shall launch the “Egyptian Campaign against Presidential Succession.” One of the main demands to be announced at the founding conference is establishing a “white room” in an attempt to confront the “black room,” which works, since 2005, on pushing forward the presidential succession process from Mubarak senior to Mubarak junior. The white room shall coordinate between specialized legal and political independent committees to prevent turning this nightmare into reality.

The “black room” is the symbolic name of the very limited group working on ensuring Gamal Mubarak’s succession to his father as the next president of Egypt. It is composed of only five – highly trusted – members. None of them is a civil or military ministerial official. They are Gamal Mubarak himself, two of his close friends, a reputable media figure and a businessman, who is also a member of Parliament. It is a closed group; new members are not accepted.

The black room started in 2005, upon a suggestion by the “reputable media figure” to gather once per month for meditation, thinking and brainstorming. In those meetings, they used to discuss weaknesses and strengths of passing the presidency to Gamal and plan how to kill facts and rumors, which might negatively affect Gamal’s opportunities.

Immediately before the beginning of 2007, the tasks of the group had changed completely in terms of their nature, scope and target. Subsequently, the black room had to meet once per week and sometimes on a daily basis, even if Gamal himself was not available. The most serious change here is the change of the nature of the assigned tasks of the group. One of those tasks, for instance, was identifying the articles of the Constitution to be amended and properly tailored to fit into their plans. By the end of 2006, President Mubarak submitted a request to Parliament to approve the suggested amendments on 34 articles of the constitution.

The black room was primarily concerned with amending article 76 in a way that limits the selection of the candidate from the National Democratic Party to the members of the General Secretariat who have served for at least one year. The main purpose of this amendment was avoiding expected pressures by newly added members in case of the absence of the president.

Another constitutional article perfectly amended by the black room was article 84, which regulates the rules of the transitional period after the unexpected vacancy of the presidency. The amended article 84 prohibits the temporary president from passing amendments to the constitution during the transitional period. Certainly, this is meant to enhance the restrictions imposed by the amended article 76. The amendments of those two particular articles are meant to ensure making Gamal Mubarak the one and only candidate of the National Democratic Party and limit the opportunities of his rivals from outside NDP.

On another level, the black room is working on drying the resources threatening Gamal Mubarak’s opportunities to succeed his father as the president of Egypt. They simply weaken the names of expected rivals, whether they are members of the current regime, opposition leaders, or public figures. Their tool in this regard is a “black” newspaper supported by the black room and working according to its “black” agenda. In addition, they sometimes burden those rivals by complicated duties that might lead to distorting their image in the public and losing their popularity. Fortunately, the black room failed in achieving those ill-conceived goals; their black plans lead to the opposite results.

Nevertheless, the biggest failure of the black room is the fact that Gamal Mubarak is already losing his popularity day after day. He was absolutely rejected by different social segments and state circles, which clarified this in obvious messages during the past few months. That pushed the black room – recently – to change their priority to a naïve campaign to polish Gamal Mubarak’s image, before the coming NDP conference in November.

After losing a great deal of what they gained over the past few years, the black room realized that the only way for succession is pressuring President Mubarak to step down and leave the presidential seat for his son. They are not ready to take the risk of waiting till the death of the President and then trying other options, which everyone is quite confident are not going to work.

The latest and probably strangest decision of the black room is instructing the close friends of Gamal Mubarak not to deal with him in an informal way. They are, simply, cutting the few last worn-out strings between Gamal and the people.

[Cited]

Ayman Nour is a brave man, and as a democrat and opposition leader in Egypt he needs to be

2009-06-22T17:18:00.000+03:00

National Review, June 22, 2009

Ayman Nour is a brave man, and as a democrat and opposition leader in Egypt he needs to be. A lawyer, and the founder and head of the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, he ran in the 2005 election against Hosni Mubarak, who has been running Egypt by emergency decree for over 20 years. In the circumstances, Nour's bid was hardly more than a symbolic gesture, but Mubarak made sure to send him to prison for four years.

Released this February, Nour has petitioned Mubarak to lift restrictions on his civil and political rights. Then he declared that he would run for president again in 2011. The very next day, someone on a motorbike rode up to him in the street, identified him by name, and fired an improvised flame-thrower. Nour's forehead, the side of his face, and much of his hair were burned. The attack was probably timed to coincide with President Obama's much-heralded June visit to Cairo. "In an authoritarian regime like ours you cannot know the reasons why things like this happen," says Nour, giving proof that his courage has not been even lightly singed.

Enduring Jailings and Attacks, Dissident Ayman Nour’s Ordeal Exemplifies US-Ignored Egyptian Repression of Political Opposition

2009-06-05T00:57:00.001+03:00

President Obama came to Cairo amidst a massive security crackdown and heaping praise on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called “a stalwart ally” and a “force for stability and good in the region.” We hear from former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, one of Egypt’s best-known dissidents and the chairman of the Al-Ghad Party. Nour was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2005 and recently injured in an attack he says is linked to elements of Mubarak’s ruling party. Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat spoke to Nour in Cairo earlier this year.

Guest:

Ayman Nour, one of Egypt’s best-known dissidents and the chairman of the Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party in Egypt.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about reaction to the speech and also hear from other Egyptian voices, I wanted to turn to the case of the former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, one of Egypt’s best-known dissidents, chair of the Al-Ghad, or Tomorrow, Party in Egypt, challenged Mubarak for president in 2005. He came in distant second, garnering something like seven to 13 percent of the vote, according to different estimates.

But Ayman Nour was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2005 on charges of allegedly forging some of the signatures required to register his political party. While in prison, Nour’s case received much international attention, including mentions by the White House press secretary and President Bush, but he was only released in February of this year.

Well, last month, just after he was released, Ayman Nour was injured. He was driving in a car, and a man came up in a motorcycle near him and sprayed flames in his face using an aerosol spray can. Nour has accused elements from President Mubarak’s ruling party of being behind the attack. Last year, his party headquarters in downtown Cairo was burned down.

Issandr, a little more on who he is, as we go then to the piece that Anjali Kamat did with him in Egypt, when she sat down with him in his home.

ISSANDR EL AMRANI: Well, Ayman Nour is a quite popular politician who was a member of parliament for a district of Cairo, who in 2004 formed his own party, a kind of a centrist-liberal party. And for the first time, since 2005 had the first directly contested presidential elections in Egypt, he really took on, partly encouraged by the pressure that the Bush administration was putting on Egypt for political reform, he really took on President Mubarak in his campaign. He came second in the race with about 7.5 percent, compared to President Mubarak’s 87 percent. But that’s quite an achievement in the very tightly controlled political space there is in Egypt. But for his crimes, a few months later, on Christmas Day 2005, in fact, he was convicted, in prison, and he only recently got out earlier this year.

AMY GOODMAN: And was burned.

ISSANDR EL AMRANI: And a few days ago, indeed, he was burned in an attack on the street. Someone threw some chemical products on his face. Part of his skin was damaged, some of his hair also.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go for a moment—

ISSANDR EL AMRANI: [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go for a few minutes to Anjali’s interview with him. Anjali Kamat had been in Gaza, come back to Egypt, and got a chance to sit down with Ayman Nour in his house. And she asked him what sort of role, if any, he thought the United States should play in promoting democracy in Egypt.

AYMAN NOUR: [translated] In fact, this issue is very embarrassing and difficult for me. The demands on my behalf from the European parliament and the United States allowed the Egyptian government to spread false propaganda about me. They claimed that I subscribe to a Western or an American agenda and not an Egyptian one. This is absolutely untrue and has no basis in reality.

I cannot rely solely on the American role in promoting democracy and believe there is also a very important Egyptian role in addition to that of the international community, Europe and the US, in terms of pushing the Egyptian regime to take positive steps towards democracy.

Now, we cannot deny the role the US has played in terms of democratization. But this role has taken a serious beating because of what has happened in Iraq and because of the lack of balance in the ways the US has handled the Palestinian issue.

The repressive Arab regimes do not want a solution to the Palestinian issue, because they want this issue to remain as an excuse to continue their militarized repression under the slogans of fighting for Palestine, and they will continue to suppress the voices freedom and democracy until this issue is marginalized.

The United States needs to understand this. There must be a true solution to this issue, a just and balanced solution. And there needs to be a role for the United States that does not support oppressive regimes, because that support only creates an enormous decrease in support from the Arab people, as well as a big loss in the right of the Arab populations to progress, advancement, peace, democracy and freedom.

We hope that in the coming period the United States will emphasize principles over interests. This is what we have been missing, and this is what we hope we can achieve.

There are prisoners of conscience in the Arab world. I was among them. In terms of limited political options, I remain one of them. There needs to be a role for all free people to call for freedom of all prisoners of conscience in the Arab world—in Syria, Bahrain, Saudi, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria. In most Arab countries, there is a real crisis. People are hoping that the new administration—and it is a direct administration—takes a different position than the previous administration.

ANJALI KAMAT: Ayman Nour, what are your expectations of President Obama?

AYMAN NOUR: [translated] There’s no doubt that we have a special enthusiasm for the new American president, as does much of the rest of the world. Personally, my enthusiasm has to do with the fact that I think we are of the same generation, more or less the same age, and belong to the same kind of political culture. Also, by chance, his election slogans of change and “Yes, we can,” these were the same slogans I raised in my presidential campaign in 2005.

All these similarities are encouraging, but we also recognize that this is the President of the United States of America and not the president of the world or the Arab world or Egypt. And we realize that he has certain calculations. But we hope that principles can win over interests. If he advances on the basis of principle, it will lead to the realization of long-term permanent interests. If, on the other hand, it’s the short-term interests that win out, that will worsen the image of the United States among our people and lead to a far greater loss of support for the US.

ANJALI KAMAT: You were arrested four years ago. Can you describe the circumstances of your arrest and why you think you were arrested?

AYMAN NOUR: [translated] I was arrested after entering the presidential elections, in which I was a runner-up to President Mubarak. The publicly announced reasons for my arrest are laughable and pathetic. They claimed that the documents used to found my party were forged and that some of the signatures presented were forged. The law just requires fifty signatures. We had over 5,200 signatures. Also, these signatures were in the regime’s possession; they were not with me. So we changed some of the signatures and also gave them copies of the original signatures.

But I was sentenced to five years in jail. I spent four years in prison. From the beginning, it was clear that the goal was to drive me away from politics and kill the party that I founded, the Ghad Party. Ghad is a young liberal party and project. The aim was to destroy Ghad, a liberal party, and me as the leader. But they did not succeed on both counts, as proven by the widespread popular reception I received and still receive in most of the provinces of Egypt. Just yesterday, I was in Port Saeed. Truly, the reception has been wonderful.

I’d like to reiterate that their aim in arresting me was not realized, and I think it’s the opposite that happened, which ended up in our favor and not against us.

ANJALI KAMAT: Can you talk a little bit about the plans for the future for your party and yourself politically?

AYMAN NOUR: [translated] The Ghad Party is a rational, liberal, objective and secular alternative to the repressive regime and also is an alternative to the irrational extremist parties. We see ourselves as the third way. We are an alternative that is in line with the moderate nature of Egyptians and with their great spirit, which has been a liberal spirit since before the revolution.

We do face a number of problems, particularly in relation to participating as a candidate in the elections, which is very, very difficult, and the government has placed several obstacles before me and my party in this regard. We are now rebuilding our party.

I am, of course, extremely thankful to all who have asked for Ayman Nour’s release, but I hope the demand will now change to focus on the rights of Ayman Nour, because Ayman Nour as a political or electoral project cannot do anything without his rights. And securing my rights is no less important than securing my freedom and my life.

ANJALI KAMAT: How do you see the future of the Mubarak government?

AYMAN NOUR: The Egyptian regime is old and has roots dating back to 1952. But for the past twenty-eight years, it has been represented by the same person: President Mubarak. This, I think, is unprecedented anywhere in the world.

The future of the current Egyptian regime depends on its ability to understand that its role must come to an end, that it must provide a real opportunity for power to circulate among the Egyptians. It has to give the Egyptian people their right to choose their rulers, their representatives, without texts that restrict and frustrate these rights and freedoms to the extent that they don’t exist at all or become some kind of a mirage.

AMY GOODMAN: Former presidential candidate in Egypt, Ayman Nour. He was imprisoned by Mubarak for a number of years, just came out, for three years, sentenced to five, and then was burned when he was driving in his car. A motorcycle pulled up and an aerosol spray can—a man holding it lit a flame and burned his face. We believe that he was at Cairo University today. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes, I’d like to ask Issandr El Amrani about the dissidents that were also invited. Not only, apparently, was he invited to be at the speech by President Obama, but several members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other human rights leaders in Egypt were invited. Talk about the Muslim Brotherhood and its role within this long-running Mubarak authoritarian regime.

ISSANDR EL AMRANI: Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is today the strongest opposition force in Egyptian politics. It’s not allowed to run in elections as a political party, but its members run as independents. In the last parliamentary elections in 2005, they won about 20 percent of seats in parliament. They are ideologically close to Hamas in Palestine, very supportive of the Palestinian cause and very suspicious of and critical of US policies in the region under the Bush administration, thus far under the Obama administration, and historically.

The Muslim Brotherhood is—there’s been a lot of talk in recent years about possible engagements of Islamists, and some people have suggested that this is—inviting the Muslim Brotherhood is recognizing its legitimate role in Egyptian politics with the—something that the Egyptian regime may not be very happy about. And, you know, this move was probably also—this is a speech to the Muslim world, also an outreach to the Islamist movements, which are certain to play a role, an important role, in Egypt and the rest of the region, should there be democracy.

But for the last few years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been prevented from participating in other elections, repressed heavily, and is used as a pretext, as a scarecrow, by the Mubarak regime to—notably with Washington—to say that it’s either us or them. And that’s a false choice.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Cole, President Mubarak not being there, how significant is this?

JUAN COLE: Oh, I don’t think that’s significant. President Obama met with Mubarak at the presidential palace before the speech. Mubarak, you know, obviously was blessing this event in some ways. So I don’t think it’s important that he wasn’t there. I think, you know, it attests to his security concerns. There have been assassination attempts on him. It may also be that he didn’t want to be seen as overshadowing Obama as a visitor. Hosting is very important in Arab culture.

But I think the big issues with regard to democracy in Egypt, you know, really have to be addressed by the Obama administration, but I wonder whether it’s not better for them to address them behind the scenes. You know, Condi Rice went to Beirut, and she denounced Mubarak before the last presidential election, and the Bush administration, I understand, put enormous pressure on Mubarak to open up those presidential elections. So he let Ayman Nour out of prison, let him run, let him lose, and then put him back in prison. So, you know, the Egyptian regime is very difficult to strongarm, and it may backfire if the US seems too heavy-handed in this regard.

AMY GOODMAN: Egypt is a place where the US has worked with the government, with the dictatorship, around rendition. Issandr El Amrani, last words on that, kidnapping people off the streets of another country, bringing them to Egypt, where they engage in the torture.

ISSANDR EL AMRANI: That’s right. And as far as I understand it, this policy was shaped in the Clinton administration, is continuing under the Obama administration, unless we stop his extraordinary rendition and the rendition of people to places like Guantanamo Bay or US territory. So if this policy is still taking place, this is again one of the other many ironies of President Obama choosing Egypt. You know, we found out a few weeks ago that Shaykh al-Libi, an alleged al-Qaeda member, was rendited to Egypt, tortured here and, because of his torture, gave a false account of links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN. And if you look at the [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to have to leave it there, Issandr. I want to thank you both for being with us. Issandr El Amrani, independent political analyst, blogs at arabist.net. And Professor Juan Cole, internationally respected historian and blogger, professor of history at University of Michigan, author ofEngaging the Muslim World. Also, special thanks to Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen.

[Cited]

From Ayman Nour, a Question for Obama

2009-06-03T14:37:00.000+03:00

By Michael Gerson

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

I last saw Ayman Nour in a dingy Cairo conference room in 2005 while he was running for president against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's military ruler. During a Middle Eastern trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had convened a small group of Egyptian dissidents and civil society leaders to discuss democracy and human rights. Many in the room were encouraged by the greater free expression Mubarak was permitting in Egypt under American pressure. A door, they thought, was opening.

Nour, looking exhausted, spoke last: "This is not an open door, it is a revolving door. It will end up with one conclusion -- a monologue, not a dialogue." Egypt's election laws, he complained, were unclear and unfair. The government was pursuing trumped-up legal charges against him. State security agents followed him everywhere.

Nour's pessimism was prophetic. After the election, he was imprisoned for three years. Now he is banned from practicing law, running for office or appearing on national television. Last week, two unknown assailants using a homemade flamethrower burned Nour's hair and face.

President Obama is entering a nation and a region where such treatment is the normal price of political courage. His Cairo University speech will send a large diplomatic signal: Does Obama honor and support such courage, or de-emphasize and dismiss it in the "realist" pursuit of other ends?

One hopes that Obama and his speechwriters have consulted "The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East," an important new book by Joshua Muravchik. The book profiles seven men and women -- six Arab, one Iranian -- taking impossible risks in the cause of human rights and self-government. They include a Saudi woman protesting the treatment of women as chattel and an Egyptian publisher trying to bring a free, responsible press to an authoritarian society. Most of these reformers have suffered imprisonment or faced threats to their lives and families.

Many of these dissidents, Muravchik told me in an interview, felt "betrayed" during the last few years of the Bush administration, when the containment of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seemed to take precedence over democracy promotion (except in Iraq). Reformers in the region generally greeted Obama's election with enthusiasm. But Muravchik says dissidents are becoming "disquieted about the administration's apparent indifference to democracy and human rights abuses."

They should be, in the Middle East and elsewhere. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has bluntly admitted that concern about Chinese human rights abuses "can't interfere with the global economic crisis" -- meaning we can't afford to offend dictators who buy our bonds. The administration talks of reviewing sanctions on Burma's junta. And Egypt's ambassador to the United States enthuses that America has stopped making "human rights, democracy and religious and general freedoms" conditions for better relations.

In this environment, the message of Obama's Cairo speech will be amplified. His Middle East advisers have probably urged him to focus (as they always do) on Israeli-Palestinian peace -- the "real" concern of the region -- instead of discredited democratic idealism. In fact, this sort of realism both reflects and strengthens the strategy that Middle Eastern dictators have pursued for decades -- the strategy of heaping attention on Israel and the Palestinians to draw attention away from their own oppression and economic failure. There is no reason Obama cannot emphasize both a two-state solution and the need for responsible and representative states across the Middle East.

It is also likely that Obama has been counseled to avoid the "d" word -- "democracy" -- in his Cairo remarks. Middle East experts sometimes contend that promoting "justice" and "good governance" is more culturally sensitive than employing such Westernized concepts as "democracy" and "freedom." The argument is common -- and uninformed. "Justice," in this context, implies human rights as the gift of a wise emir or enlightened dictator. But, as Nour and others have discovered, such gifts can be withdrawn on a whim. The next founders in the Middle East are not merely begging for more rights from autocrats; they are seeking freedom from autocracy. They want more than for tyrants to open the door of reform a crack; they want to open the door themselves.

Any presidential speech abroad has multiple audiences. One of them, in this case, is the Egyptian government, whose cooperation is needed on issues that range from proliferation to peace. But another audience will be dissidents and reformers in Egypt and beyond. And a president who does not speak boldly for their political rights -- their democratic rights -- has little useful to say to them.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

dissident Ayman Nour is pessimistic on eve of Obama visit

2009-05-31T18:59:00.000+03:00

In Egypt, dissident Ayman Nour is pessimistic on eve of Obama visit

Ayman Nour was freed from prison early this year in a gesture to the U.S., but he fears that Washington, which needs Egypt's help in the region, won't push for democratic reforms.

May 31, 2009|Jeffrey Fleishman and Noha El-Hennawy

CAIRO — Egypt's leading dissident, his forehead singed from a recent attack, sits near a window in an armchair, depressed and wondering whether he was better off behind bars.

"I want to go back to jail," says Ayman Nour, whom the government released in February as an apparent goodwill gesture to the Obama administration. "The government insists on getting the maximum benefit out of my liberation, but they are causing me the maximum harm.

"I am denied all rights. My party cannot return to the political scene. I am stalked by the police. They are even messing with my personal life. There is no ceiling to the injustice and the revenge of this regime."

When President Obama steps to the podium Thursday in Cairo, in what is expected to be a major address to the Muslim world, many will be listening for an initiative to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. But others, like Nour and Egyptian activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, will be looking for an aggressive approach to advance human rights.

Nour, who was imprisoned after the 2005 election in which he ran against President Hosni Mubarak, is the country's most prominent opposition figure. But Mubarak's 27-year rule has seen thousands of other activists, bloggers and members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood locked up on what human rights groups say are scurrilous charges to prevent any challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party.

The question now is: How will Obama, whose charisma and speeches have entranced the Arab world, balance the United States' national interests with its calls for increased democracy in the Middle East? For decades, those matters have been at cross purposes, especially in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two strategic U.S. allies whose regimes have stifled democratic ideals.

In Egypt, activists say the $1.2 billion in annual U.S. aid, most of it military, should be contingent on the Mubarak government granting wider political freedoms. Ibrahim, who has been in self-exile in the United States, had argued this point and was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of damaging Egypt's reputation -- a verdict that was overturned Monday in what is seen as another offering to Washington.

"Obama is the most respected American president outside the U.S. in almost a century," Nour says. "He is different. He has a different skin and comes from a different culture. The Arab person finds him an inspiring model and hopes someone like him can reach power here the same way Obama did. . . . But so far, we can say that Obama has a confusing agenda as far as democracy in this region is concerned. If he gives up democratization, his work will be meaningless."

EGYPT: NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH AYMAN NOUR

2009-05-25T14:24:00.000+03:00

Statement by Sergio Stanzani and Niccoló Figa-Talamanca, respectively President and Secretary General of No Peace Without Justice:

Brussels, 25 may 2009

We have learned with deep concerns that on Friday 23 May 2009 an unknown assailant on a motorcycle attacked the prominent Egyptian dissident Ayman Nour by igniting a flammable substance in his face. This attack came a day after Ayman Nour pledged to supporters that he would run again for president in 2011 if his political party nominates him and if he can overturn a ban on him running.

No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) continue to support the long struggle of Ayman Nour, one of the few liberal campaigners for democracy in Egypt who spent four years in prison after running against Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in the 2005 elections, and applaud his peaceful pursuit of these ideals for the benefit of Egypt and the Arab world.

We call on the Egyptian judiciary authorities to make a complete investigation on the incident in order to bring the perpetrator of such act to justice. We also urge the political and judiciary authorities of Egypt to allow Ayman Nour to exercise his fundamental right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression, ending the repeated intimidations and restrictions against human rights defenders, in violation of Egypt's international commitments under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

It is not Ayman Nour's struggle but it is rather the repeated persecution against human rights defenders which are harming the image of Egypt abroad. We call upon like-minded democrats and governments to stand in solidarity with Ayman Nour and make their views known to the Egyptian authorities.

Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour firebombed

2009-05-23T13:06:00.002+03:00

Egypt's Ayman Nour claims attack, suffers facial burns

Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour firebombed


Ayman Nour was attacked Friday evening on his way to a Ghad party meeting

CAIRO (Marwa Awad)

Egypt’s leading opposition figure Ayman Nour survived a bomb attack late Friday in front of his home a day after he vowed to run for elections in 2011.

Nour, one of Egypt’s best known political dissidents, was admitted to a Cairo hospital late Friday for first degree facial burns after a motorcyclist firebombed his car.

The attack took place 300 meters (984 feet) outside of Nour's home in the upper-class neighborhood of Zamalek. A youth in his late teens rode up to Nour, who had his car window rolled down, and sprayed flammable liquid in his face and lit a fire simultaneously.

“I had my window rolled down and he came up to me within a distance of one meter. He sprayed a liquid that ignited into a ball of fire that covered my face and head and I was immediately rushed to the hospital,” Nour told Al Arabiya in his first comments since the accident and declined to disclose the name of hospital he where he is being treated.

His driver was unhurt and immediately took Nour to the hospital.

Nour said he suffered first degree burns on half his face and 20 percent of his hair. Doctors told him they expect to release him within two weeks with the possibility of minor plastic surgery.

“We are in the process of filing a statement of criminal assault to the Abdel Maguid Mahmud the Attorney General to initiate an investigation into this crime,” Ehaab al-Khoury, head of the Ghad Party, told Al Arabiya. “We will also issue an official statement condemning such an act and demanding justice.”

Osama Abdel Menem, attorney with al-Ghad party told Al Arabiya he will file the criminal assault report Sunday.

Nour did not know who his attackers were, but said he believed the attack was in response to a speech he gave Thursday in Port Said announcing his resolve to run for the presidency for a second time in 2011.

However managers at Alfa market and Hardee's in Zamalek, two businesses located near the alleged attack, were unaware of any incidents around that time.

Zamalek police said no report of criminal assault was filed by Nour or the Ghad party on Friday.

" I had my window rolled down and he came up to me within a distance of one meter. He sprayed a liquid that ignited into a ball of fire that covered my face and "

Ayman Nur, Ghad Party founder

Nour, a 44-year-old diabetic, formed a political party and mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran President Hosni Mubarak during the 2005 presidential election, coming a distant second. He was then imprisoned on charges of forging signature to found his party, which his supporters believe were trumped up, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in February.

“There are many who could have done this criminal act, especially after my visit to the city of Port Said and the speech I gave there,” Nour said, adding that he remains resolved to carry on with his political activities and “will not succumb to any obstacles.”

Nour called the attack “unfair play outside of all norms of decency and legitimacy,” maintaining that ever since his release in February of this year, he has been periodically assailed in ways that sought to damage his political and social standing and hinder any progress on his political reform efforts.

“A series of distractions and obstacles were set in my path since my release. Attempts on my life of this illegitimate sort outside of the political arena try to disable the party’s development and progress,” Nour explained.

Ayman Nour and Gamila Ismail undone

2009-04-12T17:39:00.002+02:00

Ayman Nour and Gamila Ismail undone

CAIRO: Egypt's best known political couple — opposition leader Ayman Nour and his activist wife Gamil Ismail — seem to be falling apart after 20 years of marriage, creating a buzz in the country's media and political circles.

Nour, who challenged Egypt's longtime president in 2005 elections, was imprisoned soon after. His wife and political partner Ismail, confirmed in an interview published Thursday that she had separated from Nour as a step toward divorce.

"The reasons for the separation have been always there but took different shapes," she told Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper. She said the official divorce "has not happened yet" but she said the decision to separate was "final." She refused to discuss the reasons.

Word of the separation comes less than two months after Nour was released from prison, several months short of his five-year sentence. He was convicted on charges of forgery, which he had said were trumped up to remove him from politics after his challenge to President Hosni Mubarak.

Ismail had stood by her husband throughout his trial and imprisonment and rallied local and international support for his release with demonstrations and media appearances. She met with former US President George W. Bush asking him to intervene to the Egyptian authorities.

She was also seen as his political right hand. Ismail had a prominent role in Nour's liberal Ghad Party and waged a leadership battle with a pro-government faction of the party. The divisions turned violent when the rival faction clashed with Ismail's supporters at the party headquarters, which was burned.

Nour, who is in his mid-40s, is now trying to rebuild Ghad, though he is banned from running for office because of his conviction. Some have speculated Ismail would run in his place in the 2011 presidential elections.

When rumors of divorce first emerged earlier this week, Nour vehemently denied it. He told Egypt's Mehwar TV on Tuesday that Ismail was "exhausted" and "needs time off." Neither could she be reached for comment. The couple have two sons.

When asked if separation will affect Nour's political future, Ismail told the newspaper, "This is not true and I don't want to think about it that way because it puts me under heavy pressure." –AP

Ayman Nour's word to US Congress

2009-03-27T02:07:00.000+02:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

"I Won't Wait for the Regime to Give Me Its Blessings!"

2009-03-20T20:20:00.001+02:00

Interview with Ayman Nour : "I Won't Wait for the Regime to Give Me Its Blessings!"

Ayman Nour, the chairman of Egypt's liberal El-Ghad party, talked to Arian Fariborz and Mahmoud Tawfik about his party's perspectives for the future and his plan to run for office again in the next presidential elections

Ayman Nour was released from prison in February 2009 after three years – for health reasons, was the official explanation on the part of the judiciary

Ayman Nour is one of the most prominent politicians in Egypt's liberal opposition. Many in the Arab world and the West see Nour, 44, as a liberal standard-bearer and a democratic alternative to Mubarak's authoritarian National Democratic Party and the Islamist opposition in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood.

2005 saw his arrest in the wake of the presidential election, on the pretext of electoral manipulation after his liberal El-Ghad party had gained 13 percent of votes.

According to political observers, Nour's sudden release last February was largely down to pressure from the Obama administration. Washington had categorised his arrest as an abuse of justice.

Although the state excluded Ayman Nour from political activities for five years after his release, he had announced he would be standing again in the next presidential elections in 2011.

* * *

According to many journalists and political observers, your release was a consequence of US pressure on the Egyptian government. Do you share this view?

Ayman Nour: The American pressure was certainly a factor, but I simply don't know enough details to either confirm or reject that interpretation. But I'm sure, of course, that many countries appealed on my behalf.

I'm particularly pleased on this point that the German parliament was one of the first to intercede on my behalf, by protesting against my arrest with a declaration to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

So how do you explain your release at this particular time?

Nour: That's just what I'm wondering! To be quite honest I don't even know myself why I was released from prison now of all times. I can only assume that the regime may have been trying to polish up its image – albeit rather late, as I only had four months left to serve of my regular prison sentence...

A phoenix rising from the ashes? Ayman Nour viewing the burnt-out El-Ghad party headquarters in Cairo after his release

What is the situation for Egypt's liberal opposition at the moment? Particularly after its defeat in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2005 and the decline of the extra-parliamentary opposition?

Nour: The first thing you have to realise is that the liberal opposition wasn't suppressed simply because it was liberal, but to prevent it from offering a "third way" in Egypt – as an alternative to the choice between the authoritarian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.

I believe we can pick up this idea again now that I've been released. But to do so, we have to be prepared to enter into a hard and long battle.

What alternatives do you want to offer the Egyptians as a "third way"?

Nour: Our main goal is a constitutional state. We want to offer simple, clear and pragmatic solutions and we are prepared to put these into practice immediately – if we get the chance. If the current regime were ready to give up its power at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, we'd be capable of filling the vacuum by five past eight at the latest, and taking over the business of the state in an orderly way.

We have a very clear, detailed political agenda – the longest manifesto an Egyptian party has ever had at over 1200 pages, with solutions suitable for everyday practice that don't scare people off. One thing you have to know is that the Egyptians tend to be rather suspicious of change.

Nour had announced from his prison cell that he would run for office in the next presidential election. His wife and fellow political activist Gamila Ismail passed on his statements beyond the prison walls

Apart from that, we have a public profile as a "young people's party" for 20 to 30-year-olds. I myself may be 44, much older than that, but that still makes me only half the age of the old guard of over-80-year-olds.

Egyptian opposition parties – and the Muslim Brotherhood is no exception here – are often accused of restricting their demands to political reforms, whereas they have no clear ideas on the economy. Does the same apply to the El-Ghad party?

Nour: We have our very own ideas of a "third way" as Gerhard Schröder, Tony Blair and many others took with their social liberal reform agenda. But that mustn't keep us from our most important objective. Above all we want to fight corruption – and that can't be done via economic approaches, but only by means of political reforms, through checks and balances and by strengthening the judiciary.

What political role can you take on at all for your party in the coming years? After all, you are subject to certain state conditions that make it impossible to exercise political office freely, particularly forbidding you from running for the coming presidential elections.

Nour: Never mind the conditions – we have means of getting around them. And I'd like to say very clearly to all those who interceded for my release: what you should do now is intercede to defend my rights! My arrest was not about me personally, after all, but about curtailing my rights.

Solidarity with Ayman Nour: hundreds of supporters demonstrated for the 44-year-old politician's release at the start of the court case against him

I am free again now as an individual but at the same time I can't exercise my rights freely, and the impression is that the state is still following a repressive logic by politically immobilising certain individuals – a negative picture that does huge damage to Egypt's image. I for one do not allow myself to be swayed by the feeling that I'm banned from doing anything, and I will run for office in the coming presidential election. I will simply ignore this type of conditions, as I don't source my legitimacy from the state anyway. I won't wait for the regime to give me its blessings!

How does the future look for your party? There was allegedly a split after your arrest, meaning El-Ghad almost disappeared into obscurity after having been one of the most important parties of the new opposition.

Nour: The party did not split in the actual sense. What happened was that a number of members were expelled for giving in to pressure to support Mubarak in the presidential elections.

The state had tried to use them as a Trojan horse to undermine El-Ghad from within. Two weeks before my release, a judgement was passed in our favour, ruling that the party is allowed to reconstitute itself. It's true that the party almost collapsed during my time in prison, but the reason wasn't a genuine division but this state intervention.

There are some critics, however, who say the El-Ghad party revolves solely around yourself…

Nour: That's not the case at all. I am an important part of the party, that's true, as parties in Egypt are essentially not strong as quasi "impersonal organisations". One of the great faults in Egypt's party politics is just that, that the focus on certain individuals plays such an important role here.

But perhaps that's neither unusual nor a bad thing – there's plenty of evidence that that's the case in many countries all around the globe. The best counter-evidence in any case is the fact that I was in prison for four years but the party still exists and has even renewed itself. There are many new young people in the party leadership now.

But as the party's founder I naturally play a role, as it was me who put the manifesto together, provided ideas and gave them a political form. But that's the way it is in Egypt – people can identify more with individuals than with posters and pamphlets.

Interview: Arian Fariborz and Mahmoud Tawfik

© Qantara.de 2009

BBC News - Profile: Ayman Nour

2009-03-03T22:58:00.002+02:00

Profile: Ayman Nour

Before his imprisonment, Ayman Nour was a relative newcomer to Egypt's stagnant political scene.

Ayman Nour's Ghad party was founded in October 2004

Mr Nour, a softly-spoken, eloquent former lawyer, formed his political party in October 2004 with a view to contesting presidential elections the following year.

Three months later, prosecutors in Cairo charged him with forging signatures to register Ghad, the party whose name means "tomorrow" in Arabic.

He developed a vocal band of supporters at home and a profile abroad.

And his liberal credentials brought him into direct competition with the youthful wing of the governing party, headed by President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.

They also brought him to the attention of the US, Egypt's biggest ally in the West, which has urged Cairo to reform the political system that has kept President Mubarak in power for more than two decades.

Analysts said the speed with which Mr Nour was stripped of parliamentary immunity and brought to trial suggested the government did not want to under-estimate the political threat he posed.

The government rejected all allegations that the trial was politically motivated.

Jail term

Washington voiced disquiet at Mr Nour's treatment and Cairo delayed his trial, enabling him to take part in the 2005 elections.

The presidential poll saw Mr Nour come a distant second to the incumbent, polling 8% of the vote to Mr Mubarak's 89% - a result Nour alleged was rigged.

In November 2005, Mr Nour also lost his parliamentary seat to a ruling party candidate - another result that he claimed was rigged.

His trial went ahead a month later, delivering a guilty verdict and handing him a five-year jail term.

A co-defendant at the trial complained he had been forced to make a false confession.

Political family

Mr Nour, a diabetic dependent on insulin, spent the week before the verdict in hospital as a result of a hunger strike he had started in protest at his detention.

Ayman Nour's wife has campaigned for his release

During an earlier spell in prison, he wrote to US magazine Newsweek, saying the government was suspicious of his reformist inclinations and wanted to discredit him by labelling him as an agent of the US.

"The solidarity shown to me by my supporters, together with sympathy from the international community, have triggered in [the] authorities a strange stubbornness," he wrote.

The 44-year-old comes from a family with a long history of involvement in public life.

Throughout his trial, his wife, Gameela Ismail, led daily protests against the Mubarak administration.

While in prison last year, he is known to have written to Barack Obama as he campaigned for the US presidency. It is understood he urged Mr Obama to help Arab reformers push for democracy in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, during a speech in Egypt in May 2008, President George W Bush pointedly remarked that "too often in the Middle East, politics consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail".

Mr Nour's release was unexpected but comes at a time of expectation that the Obama administration could bring a change in diplomatic relations in the region.

Egypt Frees Challenger To Mubarak

2009-02-22T09:48:00.004+02:00

The Egyptian authorities release Ayman Nour, an opposition politician whose jailing more than three years ago on forgery charges has been the source of tensions between Cairo and Washington.

A young secular politician who mounted an unprecedented challenge against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's long-serving president during elections in 2005, Nour was jailed on charges that his supporters say were trumped up. Nour himself said that he was being punished for having dared to challenge the president who has ruled since 1981, but the authorities were adamant that he had forged documents to obtain legal status for his Al Ghad party.

In initial remarks after his release, Nour insisted that he would go back to practising his "role as a politician through the Ghad party". It is not clear, however, if that will be possible. He was freed on health grounds and his original five-year sentence bars him from politics for years after release.

"I think the timing of his release is important", said Hesham Kassem, the former deputy leader of Al Ghad under Nour. "They waited until [George W.] Bush was gone and they did it before [Barack] Obama's team had the opportunity to broach the subject. It is not a sign that there will be more political reform in Egypt but it removes a cornerstone of problems with Washington".

Bush administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state, raised Nour's case repeatedly with their Egyptian counterparts but they were steadfastly rebuffed, with Cairo insisting that it rejected all interference in a domestic matter. Some analysts at the time of Nour's jailing argued that in spite of coming a distant second in the election with about 8 per cent of the vote, the authorities perceived him as a threat because he could try to garner US support by casting himself as a credible alternative to Gamal Mubarak, the president's son who many believe is being groomed to succeed him.

Egypt's first contested presidential election was held at a time when Washington was heralding a campaign to bring democracy to the Middle East and regional governments came under pressure to enact reforms. Washington welcomed the release of the opposition politician. Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, who held talks with Egypt's FM in Washington last week, is due to visit Cairo early next month for an international donor conference on measures to rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion.

[Cited]

What Ayman Nour Told Me

2009-02-21T02:38:00.002+02:00

Hope to bring you a post-prison interview with f reed Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour soon, but here's a look at what he told me on the eve of the 2005 presidential election. His brief statements to journalists this week indicate that he is no less determined to struggle for democracy in Egypt than he was when he ran against Hosni Mubarak--or before serving the past three plus years in jail for, most people believe, standing up against the regime. [I spoke with Nour in his apartment three days before the election, but the Q&A seems to be irretrievable from the time.com archives.]

TIME: In your last speech in Cairo's Tahrir Square, you attacked Mubarak and said what you wanted to say. Is that a sign of a fair election?

NOUR: This has nothing to do with the elections. This has to do with the fact that I have personally overcome the fear of this regime. People are afraid of injustice, of oppression, of the police, of a ruler who can do anything. The indications don't suggest that this will be a fair election. The media is not neutral, the press works for the president 24 hours a day. There were attempts to tarnish [my] reputation. There is no international supervision. But we are attempting to liberate our will, to ensure that there are elections, to ensure there is change. If there are indeed true elections, then I imagine that Hosni Mubarak would get 20-30 percent of the vote.

TIME: Does the election nonetheless represent some positive change?

NOUR: Yes, it is a step. But we cannot be content with that. We want a peaceful sharing of power, not just a shape without content. [Under the monarchy] until 1952, there was a sharing of power. There was a normal process where governments came and went.

TIME: Is Mubarak capable of reforming Egypt from within the regime?

NOUR: It is normal that he will announce some changes and achieve some of them. Even if he makes changes, it will not be true as far as the people are concerned. There will always be loopholes and ways of getting around democracy, and at the end it will not lead to the desired effects.

TIME: Why did you run for president?

NOUR: I don't believe in boycotts, which is an act of apathy.

TIME: Assuming Mubarak is declared the winner, what is your next step?

NOUR: It depends on how he wins. If he wins democratically and with transparency, we will congratulate him. If he wins by fraud, then we will start a new battle in facing an illegitimate regime, from protests to civil disobedience.

TIME: Like what happened recently in the Ukraine where the presidential election was disputed?

NOUR: I am not Ukrainian. I am Egyptian. What is the problem with the Ukrainian example? In my opinion, it was some people trying to change their county. I do not see that they have a committed a crime. The regime is in a mess because there is real anger in society now and this anger will not be diffused unless this regime goes. Without my having to lead demonstrations, these demonstrations will go on.

TIME: Why would Egyptians vote for you?

NOUR: My program expresses the desires of the Egyptian people. There is a link between me and the people.

TIME: Ordinary Egyptians really support you, a liberal?

NOUR: Most Egyptians are in the middle closer to the liberals than to leftists or Islamists.

TIME: What do you expect with your upcoming trial?

NOUR: It has no basis. [Mubarak] is a weird stubborn man and he can do anything. My experience in prison was very important to me, one of injustice, of torture. There is something called torture in the Egyptian jails and something called legal violence. There are many, many people who are innocent. There are some who have been in jail for 15 years without a case against them or trial. My top priority now is to release political prisoners. Before I went to prison, it was constitutional reform.

TIME: Were you tortured?

NOUR: There was violence and there is evidence of the violence. [Nour rolls up his trousers to show bruises on his shins.]

TIME: Are the changes taking place in Egypt irreversible?

NOUR: Egypt's only chance for progress and stability is through real democratic change. It is hard to stop everything, but it is also difficult to continue everything. This is a party, a regime and some individuals that are not prepared for democratic thought

TIME: What explains the changes we are seeing in Egypt and the Arab world?

NOUR: The Arab world is not an island. Democracy is no longer a choice as much as it has become a direction that the whole world is taking. It is not possible that the whole world moves toward democracy and the Arab world moves in the opposite direction. America has an important role in everything that takes place in the Arab world. So when it comes to democracy, why would it not have an important role?

TIME: Did the overthrow of Saddam Hussein help Arab democrats?

NOUR: The American presence in Iraq has greatly harmed Egyptian calls for reform because the Egyptian citizen is saying that we do not want to turn into Iraq. This puts us in an awkward situation when we talk about reform. Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but what exists today is something worse than Saddam. Saddam was an oppressor and a dictator, but there are other dictators that America does not confront. The feelings of the Arabs is that what took place in Iraq has nothing to do with democracy at all.

TIME: But has it turned out that Saddam's fall helped democracy in the region?

NOUR: No doubt that the totalitarian regimes that exist in the Arab world are affected by external pressure more so than local public opinion. There is also no doubt that the declaration of the Greater Middle East Initiative put some kind of pressure on these despotic regimes. This is useful in the process of democracy.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

[Cited]

Egypt Frees a Dissident: A Gesture for Obama? By Scott MacLeod / Cairo

2009-02-20T02:27:00.000+02:00

Former Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour, right, greets supporters as he arrivesl at his party's headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, Nouri was unexpectedly released from prison on Wednesday after serving more than three years.

Amr Nabil / AP

___________________________________________________________

Ayman Nour was released from prison on Wednesday, but not even his wife knew that he was coming home. Egyptian authorities jailed the opposition leader in 2006 on charges of electoral fraud, but his imprisonment was widely seen as an effort to silence President Hosni Mubarak's most outspoken critic. Nour's wife Gamila Ismail, who organized "Free Ayman Nour" protests, often despaired that her husband, who suffers from diabetes and other ailments, would remain in prison until the end of his five-year sentence in Cairo's notorious Tora prison. And so, when Nour finally arrived at his apartment as a free man, he didn't have keys and nobody answered the door.

Egypt's attorney general cited "medical reasons" for Nour's release even though Egyptian courts had repeatedly denied Nour's request for a pardon on those grounds. Many see politics behind the decision. Mubarak, 80, wants to improve relations with the new Obama administration, following eight years of cold relations with the Bush administration that were frosty in part due to Nour's imprisonment. "Does Mubarak want to risk another four years of bad relations with the United States? I don't think so," says Hesham Kassem, former deputy leader of Nour's liberal, secular al-Ghad party. "If [Nour's imprisonment] had gone on into the Obama administration, then we were not talking about a Mubarak-Bush problem anymore, but an Egyptian-American problem." (See pictures of people around the world watching Obama's Inauguration.)

Cairo-Washington relations have been chilly over numerous issues, including U.S. handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the American invasion of Iraq as well as disagreements over domestic reform in Egypt. The U.S. froze negotiations on a free trade agreement with Egypt after Nour was handed his prison sentence; Mubarak, in turn, halted his regular visits to Washington. In contrast, Mubarak appears elated by Obama's decision to plunge immediately into Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and gave a warm welcome last month to George Mitchell when the new U.S. special envoy made Cairo the first stop of his first Middle East tour. Last week in Washington, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit, who bitterly sparred with former Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice over Nour, became the first Arab counterpart to meet with Obama's top diplomat, Hillary Clinton.

The freeing of Nour, 44, not even a month after Obama assumed office, is also being seen partly as a final snub of President Bush, whose administration repeatedly and publicly pressured Mubarak to free Nour. "Bush was gone Jan. 20," says Kassem. "They had it out together, and Mubarak had his way. Mubarak came out on top. When is the perfect timing to release Ayman Nour? Within a few weeks of Obama coming in." (See pictures of George W. Bush in the Middle East.)

Yet it's far from certain that Nour's release heralds an easing of the regime's pressure on opponents and critics. Within the last two weeks, for example, Egyptian state security agents reportedly detained and held without charge for four days an Egyptian-German blogger, Philip Rizk, who had protested what he saw as the regime's inadequate support of Paletinians during the recent Gaza conflict with Israel. Human Rights Watch has denounced Egypt's "appalling domestic rights record," citing alleged "torture in police stations, arbitrary arrests of non-violent dissidents and crippling restrictions on civil society organizations." Rights groups have also criticized Egypt's state of emergency, which has remained in force throughout Mubarak's five terms as President.

A better indication of the regime's intentions will be seen in how it deals with Nour following his release. Within hours of tasting freedom, Nour told reporters that he intends to re-enter politics despite the ban imposed on political activity imposed by his conviction. In the 2005 election, Nour was runnerup, winning 7% of the vote to Mubarak's 88%, but government pressure, possibly including fires that damaged al-Ghad's offices, has decimated Nour's party. In its court prosecution of Nour, the government charged that he had forged signatures on documents required for registering al-Ghad to become a political party. Regime critics have speculated that the regime sought to silence Nour because he posed a threat to the prospects of Mubarak's son, Gamal, 45, to become Egypt's next president.

Nour has a long way to go to rebuild his political career. Though he gained respect for defying Mubarak and enduring a prison sentence, few Egyptians see the freed prisoner as a local Nelson Mandela. Many value Mubarak's National Democratic Party for bringing stability, while large numbers of government opponents support the banned Muslim Brotherhood group. Nonetheless, some observers believe that Nour's release may be an indication of greater freedom to come for all opposition parties. "This is a positive sign," says Hala Mustafa, editor of the Egyptian journal Democracy. "In the end, the regime showed a relative tolerance toward one of its fierce opponents. It is a sign that maybe the regime is willing to compromise. Before, the regime [used to shut] the door for any compromise. Political openness is a must, and it is very difficult to turn back."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1880767,00.html

FP - Ayman Nour's release - symbol and substance

2009-02-19T18:40:00.001+02:00

Foreign Policy Marc Lynch
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 3:28am

Ayman Nour, leader of Egypt's al-Ghad Party, has finally been released from prison after being arrested on what most people consider trumped-up charges following his challenge to Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election. (Egypt's al-Masry al-Youm has extensive coverage in Arabic here.) Nour's imprisonment was always outrageous. The Washington Post editorial page and many democracy activists framed his detention as the single most potent symbol of Mubarak's refusal of American pressures on democracy issues. As with the persecution of the civil society activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the imprisonment of Nour sent a powerful message to Americans and to Egyptians alike: the U.S. would not seriously press democratic reform issues and could not even protect its friends.

Why now? Most Egyptian coverage ties it directly to Mubarak's desire to improve relations with Washington by removing an ongoing irritant and offering a fresh start with the Obama administration. Comments a savvy Cairo-based friend:

it is not just an overture to Obama that Mubarak wants to change the negative dynamic in the US-Egypt relationship. It is a clear message that says, “look: Bush tried for four years to pressure me. But I do things on my own timing and any pressure is counterproductive.” The message is....that if the same US approach to Egypt continues, it will only generate headaches. It was necessary to release Nour to improve the bilateral relationship, since after the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress the Ayman Nour case became a congressional issue beyond the control of the administration.... Over the last two years Congress has put unprecedented (even if still relatively mild) pressure on Egypt by withholding $100 million in military aid (but giving Condoleeza Rice the right to waiver the withholding, which she did twice). Now Congress will not have Ayman Nour to rally support around this, and the cautious State and DoD approach to the Egyptian relationship (which is very strong in military, intelligence, and a few issues aside diplomatic terms) could very well prevail - especially as we’re seeing a new Egyptian crackdown on the tunnels to Gaza, the other big issue for Congress.

I fear that he's right about the politics of this. Nour's imprisonment was an important symbolic issue in the U.S.-Egyptian relationship. But his detention was never the only or even the most significant aspect of the regime's crackdown on political opposition, which included the arrest of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, heavy pressures on the press and the judiciary, and much more. His release responds to the symbolic issue, but not to the substantive issue. I'm very happy for Nour and his family, and for the end of the farcical case against him. His release does not come close to reversing the authoritarian trends in Egypt I hope that this does not become an excuse to begin ignoring democratic reform, human rights and public freedoms issues in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

Freed Egyptian dissident surprised but unrepentant

2009-02-19T00:47:00.007+02:00

Egypt releases opposition leader Ayman Nour - 19 Feb 09

2009-02-19T00:47:00.006+02:00

Interview with Ayman Nour on Egypt's Elections

2009-02-18T21:50:00.001+02:00

Interviewee:

Ayman Nour

Interviewer:

Sharon Otterman

Editor's Note: On February 18, 2009, Egypt's government released Ayman Nour, the most prominent of Egypt's jailed pro-democracy dissidents, after for than three years in prison in what was widely regarded as an effort to improve relations with the new administration of President Barack Obama. Nour told the AP that he had no warning about his release, nor could he explain the timing. "Why they did this is unknown," the AP quoted him as saying.

Nour's case has been a staple of U.S.-Egyptian relations ever since his conviction in December 2005 on charges of forging signatures on behalf of his party's efforts to contend in the 2005 presidential elections. He was arrested before the election, but the arrest drew strong protests from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Nour was released and allowed to stand as presidential candidate of Al-Ghad (Tomorrow), a secular, liberal party opposed to the longtime rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

Official results of the September 2005 voting gave Mubarak 88 percent of the vote, but the election was strongly criticized by international observers. A 2006 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted the elections were widely regarded as fraudulent. Still, even with official corruption, candidates affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood won over 20 percent of the vote, and Nour's "Tomorrow" party won another seven percent.

Shortly before the election -- and just days before he was rearrested -- Nour spoke at his home in Cairo with Sharon Otterman of CFR.org about his hopes for democracy in Egypt and the wider Middle East:

You’ve just wrapped up your presidential campaign with an enthusiastic rally here inCairo. Looking back, what do feel you’ve been able to accomplish these past weeks?

The campaign was very short, only eighteen days. We accomplished part of our mission to communicate with a huge number people from various sectors of Egyptian society. We had twenty-three rallies and visited eleven governorates. We were the most attractive campaign to the Egyptian people, obviously, with huge numbers of people coming to our events. So we feel we accomplished a part of our goals. When the results are out, they will demonstrate whether the election was free and fair enough to reflect the support we know we have from the people.

What is your best guess as to the final results?

If the elections were free and fair, I believe that President Mubarak would not get a large number of votes. Wide sections of the Egyptian community see that twenty-four years [of Mubarak rule] is a very long length of time to go without results. But if the elections are rigged, anything is possible.

Will the election be rigged?

The election will be neither free nor fair.

Many aspects of this election have already been criticized by domestic and international observers. Despite this and your own concerns, do you think this election represents an important step forward for Egypt?

No doubt, it’s a step, but it’s a limited step. There has already been a democratic system in Egypt, from 1923 to 1952. It is not enough for Egypt to have this election, with all of its flaws. There must be more reform.

When do you believe Egypt could emerge as a fully functioning democracy?

It could happen tomorrow in Egypt. Egypt is ready.

A number of opposition groups, including the Kifaya (Enough!) movement, are calling on Egyptians to boycott the election. They believe it is useless to participate because the election will not be fair. Do you think their stance is counterproductive?

It is their right to choose this option, and I respect their point of view. But I believe that boycotting is not the appropriate answer in response to a ruler determined to stay in power no matter what. I believe we need to participate to bring change.

What role do you think the Muslim Brotherhood play in this election? They have called on their many followers to vote, but have not specified a candidate.

Until now, their stance is still unclear, and I can’t speculate on it. As far as my campaign is concerned, however, it was not my goal to win the support of the Brotherhood or any other group. My goal is to gain constitutional rights for everyone, and to make sure all parties can run for office without restrictions. For their part, the members of the Muslim Brotherhood should participate in this election as any other Egyptian citizens.

Did you seek the endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood in the course of this campaign?

I went to tell them about my election program. My goal was not more than that, to tell them about my program, to tell them as much as possible about everything I will do if elected. It is the same I would do for anyone else.

Your next challenge after this election will be facing the courts September 25 in the forgery case against you. Do you think the charges could be dismissed?

It is a fabricated case—I know that, and everyone knows that. I believe in justice, and I believe in Egypt’s judges. So I hope for the best.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/8829/interview_with_ayman_nour_on_egypts_elections.html

The Arabist - Ayman Nour released

2009-02-18T18:50:00.001+02:00

Ayman Nour released

Ayman Nour on the campaign trail in Menouf, 2005.

The public prosecutor’s office declared a couple of hours ago that Ayman Nour would be released on medical grounds. I have heard he is now home. There is no further information as to why now, or why previous appeals to release him on medical ground were denied, but this appears to be a political decision. Rather strange timing that this happens a couple of days after the Washington Post urges the Obama administration not to deal with Hosni Mubarak unless Nour is freed.

Let’s assume – with all due respect to the integrity of the Egyptian legal system – that this is a political decision. What’s the rationale? I think the most plausible explanation is that it is not just an overture to Obama that Mubarak wants to change the negative dynamic in the US-Egypt relationship. It is a clear message that says, “look: Bush tried for four years to pressure me. But I do things on my own timing and any pressure is counterproductive.” The message is, before Obama and his administration settle into a clear approach on Egypt (I don’t think the NSC staffer on Egypt has even been appointed yet), that if the same US approach to Egypt continues, it will only generate headaches. It was necessary to release Nour to improve the bilateral relationship, since after the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress the Ayman Nour case became a congressional issue beyond the control of the administration (in fact Dick Cheney tried to intervene to calm down Congress, and was pushed back.) Over the last two years Congress has put unprecedented (even if still relatively mild) pressure on Egypt by withholding $100 million in military aid (but giving Condoleeza Rice the right to waiver the withholding, which she did twice). Now Congress will not have Ayman Nour to rally support around this, and the cautious State and DoD approach to the Egyptian relationship (which is very strong in military, intelligence, and a few issues aside diplomatic terms) could very well prevail – especially as we’re seeing a new Egyptian crackdown on the tunnels to Gaza, the other big issue for Congress.

So what happens now? Well, Obama staffers have a token sign of progress they can point to, and a lesson that the Bush approach failed. Congress has what it wants. Ayman Nour, under Egyptian law, is now no longer able to run for public office as he has a criminal record. The Ghad party has been torn in half and will take time to rebuild. The legislative and political environment is much worse than it was when Nour first emerged as a national figure in 2004-2005, and repression is taking place much more brutally and systematically. So, most probably, we will see US pressure on democratic reform die down, since policymakers will find it difficult to get support for another direct confrontation with the Egyptian regime. They will wait and see what happens after succession. And for Mubarak, patience and sheer stubbornness won in the end. Which goes to prove that “democracy promotion” is a policy that’s in need of a serious rethink: “pressure” doesn’t really work, and autocracies have time on their side – unless those doing the pressuring are willing to make a serious break with past practices.

For now, I wish Ayman the best and am tremendously happy for his family, especially his brave wife Gameela who fought against all odds for so many years.

"Ayman Nour's release is fantastic", says LI President

2009-02-18T14:00:00.000+02:00

"Ayman Nour's release is fantastic", says LI President

Liberal International (LI) President John Lord Alderdice warmly welcomed the release of Ayman Nour of the Egyptian liberal party El Ghad after more than three years of imprisonment, and announced that the next LI Congress will take place in Cairo, Egypt.

Speaking from Kampala, Uganda, where he is currently representing the Liberal International at a meeting of ALDEPAC, the group of liberal and democratic parliamentarians from the European Union, the Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean, Lord Alderdice commented: 'The release of Ayman Nour is fantastic news. First and foremost for his own freedom and well-being, but also as an inspiration for liberal and democratic forces in Egypt. Mr. Nour's courage and determination in speaking out for the freedom of speech, democracy and political freedoms in Egypt, even at the sacrifice of his own personal freedom, have been an inspiration to many. His intended return in politics is a particularly encouraging sign for liberals in the Middle East, who have so successfully established the Network of Arab Liberals (NAL) over the last few years in which Mr. Nour's party is an active member. As members of the Liberal International across the world, we will continue to actively support Mr. Nour and other liberals in the region. It therefore gives me much pleasure to publicly announce that the 56th Liberal International Congress will take place in Cairo, Egypt, from the 29th of October until the 1st of November 2009. “

The Egyptian liberal party the Democratic Front Party (DFP) has been a member party of LI since the 2007 Belfast Congress, while Mr. Nour's El Ghad party is LI's partner that has initiated the process of formal affiliation with Liberal International.

Egypt's Ayman Nour takes HR chief to court

2009-01-05T17:55:00.001+02:00


Ayman Nour, opposition leader of Ghad Party sues NCHR for neglecting his plight

CAIRO (Marwa Awad)

After four years of filing complaints of prison torture, jailed opposition leader
Ayman Nour has filed suit against Boutros Boutros Ghali demanding one
million pounds ($181,750) and accusing the former chairman of the National
Council for Human Rights of failing to perform his duties.

"Nour's condition worsens daily behind the walls of Egypt's Tora prison,"
activist Jameela Ismail, Ayman Nour's wife, told AlArabiya.net.

Real motives behind arrest

Democracy activists believe Ayman Nour was jailed for running up against Mubarak in 2005

Nour was sentenced during the 2005 Egyptian presidential elections to five
years in prison on charges of forging many signatures that his opposition
Ghad party needed to get legal recognition, charges vehemently denied by Nour.

Human rights organizations and democracy advocates however believe the real causes of arrest were Nour's decision to run against President Hosni Mubarak in the September 2005 elections, in which Nour secured 13 percent of the votes, according to independent surveys.

“Ayman Nur’s trial, like the violence against voters in the parliamentary elections, is a terrible advertisement for President Mubarak’s supposed reform agenda, and for Egypt’s judiciary,” Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division said in a 2005 HRW report.

Since his arrest, Nour has repeatedly filed complaints to the council detailing the physical and emotional abuse he says he faces daily at the hands of Tora prison guards. The council responded by setting up a committee of inquiry into Nour's situation.

"What we have seen from the council was one single visit in 2005 followed by promises to look into Ayman's case. Four days after Ayman was beaten up by Egyptian police officers as he was being transferred to the Giza court for a hearing," Ismail recalled.

Prison torture

Jameela Ismail, permitted to visit her husband once every two weeks, says Nour suffers daily

Ismail, who is allowed to visit her husband once every two weeks, believes the beating came in defiance of the committee's visit.

"The police and guards beat him in a clear sign to the committee that what NCHR does means nothing and will achieve nothing," she said.

HRW has condemned Egypt's record of human rights abuses in its 2007 report on the country's human rights violations.

“Egypt has for too long committed serious and systematic abuses at home while consistently undermining UN mechanisms to defend rights,” Joe Stork was quoted in the report.

Ghali's response

" I have not received any official papers about a lawsuit and until then, these claims are just rumors. "

Boutros Boutros Ghali, NCHR chief

NCHR chief Boutros Boutros Ghali said he had no knowledge of any lawsuit filed against him.

"I have not received any official papers about a lawsuit and until then, these claims are just rumors," he told AlArabiya.net.

He claimed that NCHR has sufficiently addressed Nour's complaints, adding that the Egyptian Judiciary has the final say on Nour's plight.

Imprisoned Egyptian Liberal Oppositionist Ayman Nour Writes Open Letter to Barack Obama

2008-08-17T17:14:00.001+03:00

Imprisoned Egyptian liberal oppositionist Dr. Ayman Nour recently wrote an open letter to U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

The following is the letter in its entirety, in the original English, as posted on freeaymannour.org, and dated June 15, 2008: [1]

"[I Am] A Human Being, About Your Age, Who Was - And Still Is - Dreaming... of Change and Reform... In Our Countries Legitimate Dreams Turn Into Horrifying Nightmares!!"

"Senator Barack Obama

"Democratic Candidate, U.S. Presidency

"Dear Sir: These lines, which I'm not certain will see the light or reach you, were written behind the walls of an old prison in the south of Cairo. This may be the oldest prison in Egypt and the Middle East. The writer of these lines is a human being, about your age, who was - and still is - dreaming like you of change and reform in his country, this legitimate dream. However, in our countries legitimate dreams turn into horrifying nightmares!!

"Senator Barack Obama

"- The writer of these lines is Dr. Ayman Nour,

"- Born on 5^th December 1964

"- Obtained a law degree in 1985 then obtained a PhD in Constitutional Law in 1995.

"- Worked in various fields, including law, journalism and human rights as I've founded the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the oldest and first civil organization that monitored human rights violations in Egypt.

"- Became a parliament member in Egypt in 1995 for the Middle Cairo area, the oldest and most densely-populated area in Cairo. My parliament membership continued (for 10 years) till I was imprisoned in 2005.

"- In 2004 I founded Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) liberal party after four rejections from the state.

"- I ran for the first presidential elections in Egypt's history in 2005 as candidate for the party I had founded and been elected leader of. I came in second to the current (and previous) president (1981 - 2008) in the presidential election among 10 parties. My campaign motto was "Hope for change"!!

"- The official charge in the documents is a claim that I was aware that forged powers of attorney were submitted to the state among the party establishing documents. It may surprise you to learn that the Egyptian law requires no more than 50 powers of attorney from any 50 Egyptian citizens!! We submitted thousands of powers of attorney which we had received from citizens. Although the charges were naïve, lacked logic and procedures were null because they violated my parliament immunity, the state assigned the case to a prosecution specialized in political cases (State Security Prosecution) then referred the case to a particular judge which specializes in political cases. This same judge had sentenced Saad Eddin Ibrahim and other Egyptian opposition figures to prison. He sentenced me to five years with labor in December 2005, in addition to prohibiting me from practicing any political, parliament or party profession or work for six years following the sentence!!

"- The real charge is that I committed the crime of dreaming of change!! That and competing with the president who had been ruling Egypt for 27 years!! I threatened his ream to hand down Egypt to his son who seeks to rule for another 27 years and monopolize the mechanisms of peaceful circulation of power

"Between the naïve and fake official charge and the real charge there was a considerable government package of political accusations that the official, government media sought to promote against me, all of which claim that I am supported by the United States of America's reform agenda in the region to achieve a model similar to that of Iraq!!

"This claim may be supported by a set of lies and rumors, in addition to only one truth, the fact that the U.S. Congress, Administration and media object to the injustice and revenge I and my party were and continue to be subject to, as my party also got a serious and hidden share of unfair measures."

"[My] First Presidential Campaign... Showed a Fetus That Had Started Moving and Coming to Life in the Womb of This Nation"

"Senator Obama: My real crime and the crime of the Al-Ghad liberal party is that we spoiled an old ongoing equation that the regime and party that has been ruling Egypt since 1952 have been promoting that they are the only choice in the face of the religious alternative represented in political Islam movements, particularly Muslim Brotherhood. Between the founding of Al-Ghad party in October 2004 and the presidential election in September 2005 we have provided practical and shocking evidence that an opposition liberal secular party can succeed to become a third party between an oppressive state and the Islamist Movement... a young alternative to an ageing regime, a popular and modern alternative to a domesticated opposition that has become marginalized, and a reasonable alternative that possesses the dream and the ability to fulfill this dream without disturbing the principle and priority of stability!!

"During that first presidential campaign that lasted for only 18 days we have presented a model of an election campaign that was the poorest ever but the most capable of awakening stagnant dreams and young capacity. The results, despite blatant rigging and terrorization, as well as monopolizing the sources of funding, media and state power and resources, showed a fetus that had started moving and coming to life in the womb of this nation and in the heart of the region that had been swimming in oppression."

"What Happened To Me Was Not Only an Assassination of My Rights as a Human Being [and] Citizen, Nor an Assassination of My Political Party... It Was an Assassination of the Last Promising Civil Reformist Dream"

"Senator Obama: What happened to me was not only an assassination of my rights as a human being, citizen, nor just an assassination of my political party and its right to exist. It was an assassination of the last promising civil reformist dream, a confiscation of the right of my generation in this country and in the region to dream again of a peaceful, civil and reformist change in the shadow of the 'flying wolf's head'!!

"I admit that we have not felt alone due to the objection and condemnation on part of the parliaments of the free world, the European Parliament (which issued a strong decision in 2008) of what I was and continue to be subjected to. There was also reservations expressed by the U.S. Congress, Administration and President Bush in May 2007 in Prague and in May 2008 in Sharm al-Sheikh, as well as Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice on many of her visits to Cairo following our first - and last - meeting during her first visit which she had postponed more than once due to my first arrest.

"However, Egypt's regime has become accustomed to such pressures and has always proven its ability to ease them through an exchange of temporary regional roles and interests taking advantage of the seasonal nature of such pressures and its ability to maximize and play on U.S. and Western fears of the spread of fundamentalism in the region, particularly the Hamas model. The Egyptian regime also takes full advantage of the constant tension in the region and the tarnished image of democratic reform due to events in Iraq. Egypt's regime also bets on the weakening criticism against its violations during the U.S. election and administration change. Egypt's regime may take advantage of the time the new American administration may need to organize and fortify itself and hand down the country to the president's son while the world is busy with U.S. election and White House changes.

"I and My Generation of Reformists In Egypt, The Arab Region And The Middle East Do Not Only Share Your Feelings... We Also Share Many of Your Campaign Opinions"

"Senator Obama: Me and the generation I belong to - in Egypt and the Arab region - which views you as a gifted and inspiring model for the dream of freedom and change and look forward to hearing from you - today, tomorrow and in the future - what may renews our legitimate dreams of freedom, justice and peace and render hope and the values of freedom and progress victorious over the frustrations brought about by old oppressive regimes that have for long decades enjoyed the support of major states in a losing bid between interests and principles where the values of oppression won to the disadvantage of principles and interests alike.

"I and my generation of reformists in Egypt, the Arab region and the Middle East do not only share your feelings because you belong to this generation and have become a leading figure of it, we also share many of your campaign opinions, as, for example:

"1. Concerning the withdrawal from Iraq: We agree with you, despite the differing reasons, of the importance of a quick withdrawal from Iraq making sure not to leave any permanent bases that may give constant rise and justification to extremism and terrorism. We clearly say that the Iraq model has become a major obstacle in the face of Arab reformists as regimes have used it and simple citizens fear a reform dream that would lead to a nightmare similar to that of the Iraq scarecrow. It's as if it is the fate of reformists and people in the Arab world to pay the price twice, the first time due to the presence of oppressive regimes, such as the Saddam Hussein and other regimes, and the second time with the elimination of such regimes and their replacement with chaos and bloodshed that render oppression the only option.

"2. Concerning the Peace Process with the aim of establishing a Palestinian and an Israeli state: The declaration on 06/06/2008 considering Jerusalem an issue to be decided by negotiation between both parties renewed all of the region's peoples' hopes to reach a final, fail solution to this issue which has consumed the blood and capacities of the people and opened the door to fundamentalism, terrorism and oppression, each of which are justified as long as this issue remains unresolved.

"3. Dialogue with Iran and Syria: Recent history affirms this dialectic relation between the person sitting in the White House and the Iranian tendency. Your presence in the White House will end the Ahmadi Nijad phase. When Clinton was U.S. president, Iran elected the reformist Khatami, and when the White House methodology changed Ahmadi Nijad came to power. Your coming to power in the U.S. will be a good reason for the end of the Nijad era to be replaced by Larijani or another leader capable of changing the roles and natures of the phase. This will also definitely reflect on the general mood in Damascus and Lebanon.

"4. The priority of democratic reform in the region: We agree with the announcement you made on June 4^th criticizing the policy of depending on Middle East dictators. However, some people linked the Minnesota speech to pressure on oil states!! Now remains the issue of the priority of democratic reform in the region in general and the importance of providing a clear vision as the right means to helping this region out of its fall and saving it from the terrorism and fundamentalism generated by oppressive regimes that monopolized means to peaceful circulation of power and that lacked any of the good governance characteristics. We still await, during the coming stage of your campaign, a clearer position towards issues of reform and freedoms through the agenda to be expected from a law professional, a lecturer of constitutional law, an attorney who has contributed for over 11 years (1993 - 2004) to the field of human rights and the Democratic Party candidate who has always been concerned with such issues, whether in power or not."

"The Supporters of Reform And Freedom, Headed By Prisoners of Consciousness in Egypt, Syria, Palestine And Other Countries, Await Your Declared and Fixed Position Supporting... Their Hope in Change"

"Senator Obama: The supporters of reform and freedom, headed by prisoners of consciousness in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and other countries await your declared and fixed position supporting their rights to life and freedom and their hope in change. Prisoners of consciousness in oppressive countries are deprived of the simplest human rights and subjected to the worst forms of violation and physical and psychological pressures in the absence of the justice of litigation and natural law. The authorities now use the incidents that took place in Abu-Ghraib and other detention places located outside the United States as a justification to violate the rights of innocent callers for peaceful reform in their countries saying that America, the country of freedom, is committing the same acts!!

"Your Remark in the Minnesota June 4 Speech... May Not Agree With the Ambitions of Arab Liberals, Particularly in Egypt, Syria and Palestine"

"Senator Obama: Your remark in the Minnesota June 4^th speech on how serious it is to depend on and support dictatorships may be satisfactory but may not agree with the ambitions of Arab liberals, particularly in Egypt, Syria and Palestine where the disaster is harder. I only point out to parliament figures behind bars and paying a high price for their positions. They are threatened with murder through illness and pressures. I will not speak of my condition. I mean other figures for example in Syria, such as the Damascus Declaration group which includes former parliamentarians and liberals, such as liberal lawyer Anwar al-Binni and others. I also mention Palestinian parliament member Marwan al-Barghouty who is detained in Israel. The real hope lies in a strong alternative to Abbas capable of bringing balance in the light of the popularity enjoyed by Hamas.

"As for Egypt, in addition to my situation, which I will not further detail, there are detainees in accordance with the Emergency Law from Al-Ghad party as a result of the April 6^th strike and incidents, others from the Kefaya movement, Al-Karam party and Al-Amal (Labor) party, all of which are prohibited by law!! There are also Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood detainees and those referred to military trial. More important and in addition victims of oppression in Egypt, are the sources of such oppression, which in my estimate are:

"1. Article 76 of the Constitution, amended in 2005 and 2007 to eliminate any real competition to the president and the heir. The conditions are restrictive to the point of tailoring the position to the president and his son.

"2. Article 77, amended in 1980 to extend the president's term to become unlimited

"3. Constitutional amendment introduced in 2007 eliminating judicial supervision of elections. This results in further organized rigging of any parliament, local and presidential elections.

"4. Violating the principle and independence of litigation and public prosecution

"5. The regime monopolizes all media and means of real influence

"6. The state controls the establishing of political parties and interferes with their work, as well as robbing them (as was the case with Al-Ghad party)

"7. The continued enforcement of the Emergency Law for 27 years and applying it to political parties (as was the case with Al-Ghad party) and using it to prevent gatherings, demonstrations, expression, etc., particularly during the peaceful strike organized on April 6^th.

"8. Using the directed judicial rulings, infiltrated judiciary and the government-controlled parliament to commit all forms of rights violations that allow those in power to monopolize power and terrorize opposition and reformists under a false cover of legitimacy.

"9. Confusing the state with the ruling party and ensuring that other parties remain weak. Exerting strong pressures on civil society institutions with the aim of controlling them or economically and legally restricting them.

"10. Promoting aggressive sentiments against all calls for reform under the pretext that they are pushed by foreign hands and echoing foreign agendas in surprising double standards as the regime seeks foreign support and cooperation while internally inciting aggressive sentiments against the West and accusing those who seek to communicate with it concerning political reform in particular of being its agents!!"

"We Await Much From You as a Democratic Candidate and President Expected to Lead the Whole World Towards a Real and Fair Change"

"Senator Obama: We await much from you as a Democratic candidate and president expected to lead the whole world towards a real and fair change. Your generation and all the powers of reform, democrats and liberals in Egypt and the Arab world hope that January 20^thbecomes a day of freedom and democracy, not only in the United States of America but in the whole world primarily by rectifying the wrongs caused by long years of supporting dictators under the pretext of protecting interests at the account of principles.

"Please accept my sincere wishes for your success.

"Yours sincerely, Dr. Ayman Nour, Tura Mazraa Prison, 15 June 2008"

From Ayman Nour to Obama

2008-08-13T14:13:00.002+03:00

Ayman Nour to Obama: I am Imprisoned in Egypt for the Charge of Threatening the Dream of the President's Successor

Former Ghad Party President Dr. Ayman Nour sent a message to Barack Obama, the democratic nominee to the American presidential elections.

Nour started his message by introducing himself from the oldest prison in Egypt and the Middle East. He was sentenced to five years in prison for forging powers of attorney required to establish Al-Ghad Party; a charge that he described as 'naïve'.

He said that the real charge is that he was a competitor to President Mubarak in last year's presidential elections. He threatened his dream to bequeath the presidential post to his son.

Nour indicated that a number of US officials have pressurized the Egyptian regime to release him yet to no avail. He stressed that the regime in Egypt is accustomed to such moral pressures and proved its ability to swap them with the regional interests, utilizing the seasonal nature of such pressures.

Nour expressed his support to Obama's stance as regards the situation in Iraq and the necessity to withdraw the American forces from there.

He added that Obama's references during his election tours about the risks of depending on dictator regimes do not correspond with the aspirations of Arab liberals.

He expressed his wish, being one of the generation of Obama, that January 20, 2009 be the date that the new American President will assume his post and that it would be a celebration for freedom and democracy in the whole world, repairing what was spoiled by supporting despotic rulers under the claim of preserving interests.

The Washington Post : Captive to a Discarded Cause

2008-07-22T18:14:00.004+03:00

Egyptian dissident Ayman Nour embraced the president's 'freedom agenda' in 2005. He is still in jail.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

TOMORROW, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will pardon hundreds of prisoners who have served more than half of their sentences, an annual gesture of mercy coinciding with commemorations of the July 23, 1952, "revolution" that brought Egypt's military-backed regime to power. If past practice holds, those freed will include some convicted of violent crimes such as murder and rape. Yet the government has announced that people convicted of the distinctly non-heinous crime of forgery will not be eligible. Is Egypt suffering from an intolerable plague of counterfeiters? No, but its best-known political prisoner, Ayman Nour, happened to be convicted on that charge in a blatantly rigged 2006 trial.

Mr. Nour is a liberal democrat who, inspired in part by President Bush's call for democracy in Egypt, challenged Mr. Mubarak's reelection as president in 2005. His reward was to be sentenced to five years in prison, where he has been subjected to beatings and other abuse. Mr. Mubarak's relentless and vindictive persecution of Mr. Nour can only be seen as a calculated and personal insult to Mr. Bush and his "freedom agenda."

Mr. Nour has now served more than half of his five-year sentence. He is in poor health, suffering from diabetes and heart problems that have led to repeated hospitalization. He became eligible for parole in the spring; he has also appealed for release on medical grounds. Yet it seems likely that he will be forced to serve his full term, keeping him in prison for two years after Mr. Bush leaves the White House.

The president has made token gestures toward fulfilling his second inaugural promise to defend dissidents such as Mr. Nour. A year ago he mentioned his case in a speech in Prague; in May he told reporters that he had brought up Mr. Nour during a meeting he had with Mr. Mubarak. But the administration has shrunk from the measures it once was willing to take to help Egyptian political prisoners. For example, Mr. Bush withheld millions in U.S. aid to Egypt to win the freedom of dissident intellectual Saad Eddin Ibrahim in 2002.

In the past two years, Mr. Bush has all but abandoned his freedom agenda, allowing the State Department to return to the appeasement of autocrats such as Mr. Mubarak. We'd think, though, that the president would not be content to ignore such blatant mistreatment of someone who believed his words. The leverage to respond to Mr. Mubarak's behavior -- in the form of excessive and wasteful U.S. aid to the Egyptian military -- is readily available. If Mr. Nour is not freed this week, Mr. Bush ought to feel morally obligated to use that leverage.

No more letters home for Ayman Nour

2008-05-21T17:10:00.000+03:00

ed: Is Mubarak still scared of this guy, even when he's under lock and key?

LAT Home

No more letters home for Ayman Nour. An Egyptian court has ruled that the jailed political dissident and leader of the Tomorrow Party can no longer write to his wife. The reason: Nour has angered officials by mailing home essays critical of the government that ended up in the nation’s independent newspapers.

"This decision shows a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner," Nour's wife, Gamila Ismail, told AFP.

The ruling is the latest attempt to silence Nour, a lawyer who ran against President Hosni Mubarak in 2005 and was later sentenced to five years in prison for forging political documents. His cause was quickly taken up by human rights organizations that frequently criticize Egypt for political repression, torture and the jailing of activists, especially members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt News : Egypt court keeps jailed Nur cut off from outside contacts

2008-05-21T01:07:00.001+03:00

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

An Egyptian judicial source reported Tuesday that Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nur who has been in jail for the past two years will no longer be entitled to publish articles in the press

The ruling was issued in Egypt's higher administrative court, rejecting an appeal from Nur against a ruling handed down in January that also bans him from receiving or sending letters, said Egypt’s source.
"This decision shows a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner," said Nur's wife, Gamila Ismail.
Nur, who came a distant second to Hosni Mubarak in presidential polls in September 2005, was later the same year sentenced to five years behind bars on charges of forging official documents to set up a political party.
His family and human rights groups say Nur's health has sharply deteriorated in prison, but an appeal for his early release on health grounds was turned down in March.
Egypt has rejected as interference US-led criticism of its human rights record and treatment of Nur.
US President George W. Bush wound up a Middle East tour in Egypt on Sunday urging friends and foes in the Middle East, where few leaders are elected, to stop repressing their peoples.
"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," he said.

EGYPT NEWS

Except Ayman Nour

2008-04-26T16:38:00.000+03:00

Cairo, April 26, 2008

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information stated today that all prisoners of opinion are detained in Burg Al Arab prison except Dr. Ayman Nour who is detained in Mazra'at Tura prison. Three of the opinion prisoners out of five are arrested according to the emergency law. The three are Ali Abdul Fattah, director of the Egyptian media center, Mos'ad Abu Fagr, a novelist and a blogger and an activist in "wedna na'ish" (we wanna live) movement and Karim Al Behairy, a labor historian and blogger who was recently detained due to the strike called for by internet activists and democratic movements. The three prisoners are detained in Burg Al Arab detention camp located in Alexandria desert.

The remaining two prisoners are the secular blogger Karim Amir, sentenced to four years in prison, and detained in Burg Al Arab, and Dr. Ayman Nour, sentenced to five years in prison, and detained in Mazra'at Tura prison south Cairo.

Is it a coincidence that all opinion prisoners are detained in Burg Al Arab prison? This prison is in a remote area, Alexandria desert, while the detainees are from different places according to their accommodations. This makes us say that detaining opinion prisoners in such a remote prison away from the detainees' accommodation areas is a sign that the interior ministry is cracking down against opinion prisoners in Egypt.

Next May will witness three important events; the world day for press freedom on May 3, a strike called for by internet activists and democratic movements on May 4 the president birthday date, and the termination of emergency law activation period on May 27.

Mr. Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said, "We hope that the Egyptian government will not extend the emergency law activation period next May". "To terminate the emergency law activation period means that the opinion prisoners will be released, and also means that the president will issue a decree to release both Ayman Nour and Karim Amir. After 27 years, Egypt is to be without emergency law and without opinion prisoners", added Gamal Eid.

Key Witness in Ayman Nour’s case found hanged in his cell

2007-09-07T18:23:00.002+02:00

Written By Sand Monkey

One of the key
witnesses and defendants in the trial of Egyptian opposition leader
Ayman Nour was found hanged in his prison cell in central Cairo
yesterday morning, security sources said.

Ayman Esmail Hassan,
who during Nour's trial retracted his testimony against the politician,
hanged himself with a sheet in the prison where he was serving a
five-year sentence on a charge of forging documents, they added.

Hassan said he had made up his testimony under pressure from state security police, who had threatened members of his family.

"I confessed to
forgery under pressure from officers from state security," Hassan told
reporters on June 30, 2005, after his lawyer told the court he had
changed his plea to not guilty.

The court disregarded his retraction and went on to sentence both Ayman Nour and Ayman Hassan to five years in prison.

[...]

Amir Salem, the lawyer
who defended Nour in the trial and who has been trying to secure his
release on health grounds, said: "He [Hassan] was the only person taken
alone and put in the Appeals prison [in central Cairo], and according
to his family he complained constantly of ill treatment."

"He was the only
person in the Ayman Nour case who insisted on retracting his statements
against Ayman Nour, and he admitted twice in front of court that all
his statements were contrived," Salem said. "[The judge] refused to pay
attention."

You kind of get the feeling that the Egyptian government isn't even trying to pretend or save face anymore.

Sigh…

Campaign like Egypt

2007-08-01T17:23:00.001+03:00

WOMEN'S LENS - Un coup d'oeil féminin

In the U.S., we are about 16 months away from our presidential elections, but they have already started campaigning...oh what fatigue it's going to be until it's over.

Unless we just do it Egypt's way. Practical, swift, costs little money but for the incarceration of the opposition. In 2005, when Ayman Nour dared to run against Mubarak for the presidency, he was jailed. Ok, it wasn't that simple, but they came up with some story about his having forged signatures on documents for his Al-Ghad Party. An absolutely great stunt! NO TV debates, no embarrassing UTube/CNN moments, not having to spend millions of dollars showing your face here and there. Conserving energy..Al Gore would be proud.

Mr. Nour apparently has a heart condition; geez people will just say anything these days to get out of jail, won't they?? His lawyer has made attempts to get him released (oh, add diabetes to that list of ailments, and possible police brutality), but to no avail.

Word has reached Washington who is positively ATWITTER about the situation, and is urging Nour's release. Why all this publicity, when Condy is going to Egypt bearing presents? She will be in Cairo to see the democratic process at work. How much criticism can Mubarak take?

The US just announced its Santa Claus tour of its Middle East allies the only way it knows how. But the purse strings have already been curtailed once against Egypt due to its unorthodox methods of quieting bloggers. What will they do now to help Nour? Did I mention that he had heart surgery while in jail?

Al Ahram weekly : Case continues

2007-06-20T20:07:00.001+03:00

The fate of imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour is still unsettled, reports Mona El-Nahhas

The Administrative Court announced on Tuesday that any decision on whether Al-Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour will be released must wait until 26 June, when official medical reports into the opposition leader's state of health -- asked for on 22 May -- are due to be issued. Meanwhile, the court ruled that Nour's defence counsel -- who had complained of procrastination in preparing the official report -- could present evidence from independent medical specialists regarding their client's health.

The court ruling means that if the official report, prepared by the Forensic Medicine Department, is not presented within two weeks then the court will rely on independent assessments of Nour's health in delivering its ruling, raising hopes among supporters of the 43-year-old Nour that his 18 months behind bars might soon come to an end.

The judge presiding over the appeal for Nour's release stressed the court would not swayed by national or international calls for Nour's release, and the decision would be based entirely on the state of Nour's health. The former presidential election candidate suffers from diabetes, heart problems and hypertension and last year underwent heart surgery while in prison.

Nour's lawyer, Amir Salem, said the court's decision was a "historical ruling", adding it represented "a severe blow to administrative bodies used to ignoring court requests".

Nour's wife Gamila Ismail told reporters she had never expected the medical report to be made available to the court panel, which was why she was treating the court ruling as a victory.

But while Salem sounded upbeat, saying any ruling in Nour's favour must be implemented immediately, Ismail sounded a more cautious note, saying she feared US pressure for her husband's release could make the regime more stubborn about the case.

Legal sources say there is a possibility the Interior Ministry will ignore any ruling in Nour's favour, using the struggle between several legal bodies, including Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud's office, over who has the right to judge the case. While some observers worry about the negative consequences of US pressure for Nour's release, others point to the case of academic and pro-democracy activist Saadeddin Ibrahim. Sentenced by a state security court in 2001 to seven years in prison for receiving foreign funds without government permission, Ibrahim was released in 2003 following enormous US pressure.

Ahead of Tuesday's hearing session international calls for Nour's release increased.

During a short visit to Egypt this week a delegation from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe talked with Egyptian officials about Nour's health.

"We are following Nour's case, and we are waiting for the court verdict, expected to be passed on Tuesday," said Sarah Ludford, a member of the European parliament.

During a conference on democracy held in the Czech Republic last week US President George W Bush called directly for Nour's release. "I look forward to the day when conferences like this one include... Ayman Nour of Egypt," Bush said.

The point was subsequently underlined by the US State Department.

"We believe that Nour should be released. We hope this could be achieved. We'll leave it to the Egyptian government to define the way by which it expresses its reactions," said Tom Cass, deputy spokesman of the US State Department.

"What Bush said concerning Egypt is an unacceptable intervention in our internal affairs," insisted Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit following Bush's speech.

The National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) also weighed in with its disapproval. "Bush's statements concerning Nour's case place Egypt under no obligation," said NCHR Secretary-General Mokhles Qotb. "The law defines the legal channels that are pursued in this and similar cases."

Following a meeting of the Al-Ghad Party's higher committee a statement was released on Friday condemning Bush's statements and any external intervention in the case.

Mubarak's Egypt: Zero Tolerance for Opposition

2007-06-17T16:44:00.002+03:00

June 17, 2007

Ayman Nour is still languishing in jail, since he was imprisoned in January 2005. His crime? His popularity threatened to eclipse Mubarak in the country's 2005 elections. Geez, if it were that easy, why didn't we think of something like this back in 2000?

His chances were estimated at about 30%, which really would not constitute a threat, but the perception of his popularity seemed to be more in question than the reality itself. And what of the continuity of the Mubarak legacy, as in son Gamal Mubarak?

Though there have been continuous crackdowns on fledgling voices for change, and occasional noises from the U.S. charging that Egypt needs to be more democratic, there is little doubt that Mr. Mubarak has been running a tight ship for the last quarter century. Frankly, I think anyone whose tenure exceeds six years needs a vigorous dusting, a scrubbing with bleach and/or ammonia and a return to the general population with rose water filled blessings.

The June 15th issue of the New York Times had this headline on page A6:"Arrests in Egypt Point Toward a Crackdown". Before reading the article, I was a bit puzzled by the words point towards a crackdown. Is someone sleeping on the Editor's desk over there or what? Let's wake these folks up with some events which precede the story behind Abdellatif Muhammed Said's arrest, at the bright hour of 2:00am, June 14th.

Last Wednesday, an Al Jazeera TV journalist was jailed for supposedly fabricating torture scenes slated for a documentary.

Human Rights Watch stated that in the whole of last year, over 1,000 activists of the Muslim Brotherhood had been arrested.

Abdel Monem Mahmoud, an apparent champion of free speech and blogger, reported having been tortured in 2003 while in Egyptian custody. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, he encouraged others to use the internet as a tool against totalitarianim. Guess where he's been since May 2007? The infamous Tora Prison in Egypt.

In February of this year, after insulting King Mubarak on his blog, Abdel Kareem Nabil, who attended reknown Al Azhar University, landed in jail where he is expected to serve for four years.

The latest victim if this very obvious crackdown, is none other than the very popular Sandmonkey, whose blog most of us read and followed with great interest. Worst than being jailed, he just stopped posting after realizing that he might be under surveillance.

But isn't this Al Azhar University the seat for learning? And isn't learning about understanding, tolerance, opening minds, and forming future leaders? Damn it Egypt, you used to get it, but now, you really are acting stupid. Look what happens with your disenchanted youth, take someone like...Mohammed Atta!!?You really don't get it anymore. And I do wish that the US would get pissed enough to cancel the billions in aid they send you yearly.

Like in all the countries in the region, Egypt has embraced the stance of zero tolerance. Is it time to re-examine these policies, and perhaps come to the aid of those human rights groups which still exist within the country?

Agence France Presse : Ayman Nur’s Bid for Freedom Denied by Court

2007-06-01T01:36:00.003+03:00

CAIRO, 1 June 2007 — An Egyptian court rejected yesterday a bid by opposition leader Ayman Nur to be released from prison on medical grounds, despite his claims that his health has worsened since he was jailed.

Judge Adel Abdul Salam Gomaa announced his decision without giving any explanation.

On May 22, an administrative court postponed a ruling on Nur, an insulin-dependant diabetic who has been held for more than a year, pending a medical examination.

Nur was jailed in December 2005, three months after coming a distant second in the country’s first ever multi-candidate presidential election, in which he mounted a daring campaign against veteran President Hosni Mubarak.

He is serving a five-year sentence for forging affidavits needed to set up his Ghad party.

Nur’s lawyer Amir Salem told AFP he was pursuing a dual track in his appeal. One was before the same court that convicted his client, the court of assizes, and another before the administrative court, which examines procedure, technicalities and constitutionality leading to convictions.

Salem said before the ruling that if it were positive, Nur “will get out in order to be treated, but he could be put back in jail at any time.” In the May 22 hearing, the judge announced that a committee of medical experts appointed by the Ministry of Justice would carry out further tests on Nur before giving its decision on June 12.

In February, a committee of government-appointed experts, made up of members of the medical profession and the prison authority, concluded he was fit enough to serve out his jail sentence.

But Nur appealed and has repeatedly claimed he was not receiving proper medical care in prison.

“I’m losing my eyesight, I have cardiac problems, I have terrible headaches and my bruises and wounds don’t heal,” he said in a January interview with AFP, showing two open wounds on his legs he said he suffered when he fell a month earlier.

Nur said he had gone from being a victim of “political assassination” to being subjected to “physical destruction,” insisting the regime wanted him to die behind bars.

Nur’s wife Gamila Ismail had said earlier yesterday that she was cautiously optimistic of a favorable verdict.

“Nothing is certain, nor does it offer enormous optimism, but this time I have brought my son to court and perhaps this time we will have good news,” she told AFP.

The United States was sharply critical of Nur’s arrest and has repeatedly called for his release.

Nur formed his party in October 2004 with a view to contesting the presidential polls, but he was swiftly stripped of his parliamentary immunity and charged with forging affidavits needed to set up the party. His January 2005 arrest prompted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel a trip to Egypt in protest, and US pressure eventually obtained Nur’s release on bail in March of that year, allowing him to run in the elections.