Egypt's Ayman Nour takes HR chief to court

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.

Campaign like Egypt

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?

Free Ayman Nour

"Chirac must raise case of Ayman Nour to President Mubarak", says Graham Watson

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 19th Apr 2006

Graham WATSON (Lib Dem, UK), leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, calls on French President Jacques Chirac to raise the case of Ayman Nour during his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo today. In the European Parliament, Liberals and Democrats have been at the forefront of the international campaign calling for the liberation of the imprisoned leader of Egypt's democratic opposition party who stood last year as a candidate for Egypt's presidential elections.

"Jacques Chirac will probably discuss the Iranian nuclear stand-off as well as the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He must also speak up to promote democracy in the Middle East. Barely a month ago, the European Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the liberation of Ayman Nour. Under an ALDE initiative, a letter jointly signed by MEPs and Members of the US House of Representatives was also sent to the Egyptian authorities. If there is no positive evolution on the question of his release, it is also because EU Heads of State do not speak up with one voice to follow up on human rights violations", declared Graham Watson.

Graham Watson also raised concern over the recent clashes which erupted in Egypt between Muslims and Copts that led to bloodshed as well as attacks on several Coptic churches in Alexandria. "Human rights, religious freedom and democracy are all part of the "political dialogue and reform" Chapter of the Action Plan that the EU and Egypt are currently negotiating in the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy. Liberals and Democrats urge for progress to be made. The liberation of Ayman Nour would be a step in the right direction towards solid partnership", he concluded.

BBC News - Egypt opposition head loses seat

Egypt opposition head loses seat

Mr Nour's party has accused the NDP of intimidation and vote-buying

Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour lost his parliamentary seat in Wednesday's first-round election, Egypt's election commission has said.

The leader of the al-Ghad Party was beaten by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in the central Cairo district of Bab al-Sharia.

Mr Nour says voting there was marred by fraud and intimidation.

Preliminary results suggest that the NDP will retain its control of the People's Assembly.

Intisar Nasim, assistant justice minister and secretary general of the higher parliamentary election commission, told Egyptian television that half the results were now known.

On Wednesday, voters in eight governorates chose between some 1,500 candidates competing for about 180 of the 444 elected seats in the People's Assembly.

Egyptians in the remaining 18 governorates will vote on 20 November and 1 December, with the final outcome of the election not likely to be known until the middle of December.

'Ferocious' campaign

Mr Nour lost his seat of 10 years to the NDP's Yahya Wahdan, a former security officer.

Despite Mr Nour's popularity as one of Egypt's leading pro-democracy figures, it was always expected he would lose his seat given the ferocity of the NDP campaign against him, says the BBC's correspondent in Cairo, Heba Saleh.

However, Mr Nour disputes the result and has accused the NDP of intimidation and vote-buying in the constituency.

"What happened today is not an election," Mr Nour told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Mr Nour gained prominence when he formed the al-Ghad Party in October 2004.

It soon became the largest opposition party in the People's Assembly, with six deputies.

Three months later Mr Nour was charged with forging documents in his party's application papers.

The case came to court in June, but was postponed allow him to stand in September's presidential election.

Having come second to President Hosni Mubarak in the poll, he will have to return to court on 26 November. Mr Nour denies the charges.

NDP leaders safe

The election was not expected to challenge the National Democratic Party's dominance of the People's Assembly and preliminary results appear to confirm such predictions.

Senior NDP leaders and government ministers standing in the eight governorates contested yesterday retained their sears.

Fathi Surour, the speaker of the People's Assembly, and Zakaria Azmi, the chief of the presidential cabinet, were re-elected in Cairo, while NDP vice chairman Kamal al-Shazli won in the Nile Delta.

A risk worth taking : an interview with Ayman Nour

A RISK WORTH TAKING

Al-Ahram Weekly

Ayman Nour tells Mona El-Nahhas that running for president and working to restore party unity top his post-release agenda


For nearly a month the name of Ayman Nour, MP and chairman of the liberal opposition Al- Ghad Party, has made headlines. Arrested in January on charges of forging thousands of party membership applications, Nour was detained at Tora prison for almost 40 days pending investigations.

On Saturday Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed ordered Nour's release on LE10,000 bail. It remains unclear whether the case will be closed or Nour will still have to stand trial. Whatever happens, few members of the public accept the official line that the case is criminal and not politically motivated.

Following his release, Nour was soon back in the headlines, having announced his intention to run for president in the coming elections.

A few days before your release you said you intended to run in the coming presidential elections. What will be the consequences of that decision for your party and for your political future?

I am sure this step will have serious repercussions. I am ready for the risk, though, because I believe it will help outline the future of our society. My participation will help people choose among candidates who are qualified and capable of competing to provide an effective alternative to the ruling party.

With such a target in mind, my freedom or even my life would be small price to pay.

What preparations have you made for the coming elections?

The battle will be fierce. Yet we are ready for it. It is not only our party's battle, but the battle of a whole generation.

We intend to run against the ruling NDP's nominee, whether that is President Hosni Mubarak, his son or somebody else. We will present our platform against theirs, and will ask for an international committee to monitor the elections in order to guarantee transparency.

We are determined not to allow the party to be excluded from participating, particularly after we heard that they intend to tailor the legal conditions with the aim of banning party nominees from running. Doing that will only add another failure to their record.

How do you see your chances of success?

I would bet on the Egyptian people's eagerness for change. We believe they are fed up with seeing the same faces, same party and the same style of administration for 25 years.

You said earlier that your call for amending the Constitution was the reason behind your arrest. Now that President Mubarak has himself asked for a constitutional amendment do you still believe this is the case?

What I said was that my call for amending the Constitution was one of the reasons behind the case. It is not the only one.

I think the main reason was my intention to run in the presidential elections, and although I had not announced that at the time of my arrest it seems they learned of it.

If your calls for amending the Constitution and running for the office of president were behind your arrest, why were other political activists advocating the same cause not arrested as well?

Believe me I have no idea. Ask those who sent me to jail.

You said that destroying your party was the main objective behind the "state- fabricated" case against you. Why then did the government allow the party to be formed in the first place?

It was not their permission that allowed our existence. It was, after all, simply a matter of time before the courts would have ordered the granting of permission for the party to be formed once we filed a law suit against the government.

As I have repeatedly said, the government had no choice but to license the party after they were certain the court would rule in our favour.

At the time it was said the party obtained a licence after cutting a deal with the state. And some people accused the party of maintaining close ties with the government. I believe that time has proved such allegations wrong.

During your absence the party suffered several internal splits. What are your plans to restore unity?

The party suffered no splits but differences in opinion as to how the party should have been run in such a crisis. Some members thought it would be safer to avoid direct confrontation with the state, believing this would help me. Others preferred to put as much pressure on the government as possible.

Some leading party members made statements with which I was unhappy and which were not in line with the party's overall agenda. But we will deal with these issues and re- organise the party in a democratic manner.

Do you think there is sufficient time left before parliamentary and presidential elections to restore the party's strength?

I believe that working under such a strict timetable gives an incentive to the members to get their act together, overcome the ordeal and become much stronger.

Behind bars you said repeatedly that controversial journalist Ibrahim Eissa, appointed by the party's first general congress as editor-in-chief of Al-Ghad's mouthpiece, enjoyed your full support. Yet Eissa was replaced by a journalist from the weekly independent paper Sawt Al-Umma, which has attacked both you and the party. Why?

As far as I am concerned I have no authority to violate decisions made during the party's first general congress. For me Eissa remains the editor of the newspaper.

The decision to replace Eissa was not mine. I was not there when some of the party officials assigned certain journalists, whom I hardly knew, posts on the newspaper's editorial board. In jail I had to accept the will of the party officials to protect Al-Ghad from internal splits.

I'll meet very soon with the newspaper's new editorial board and evaluate the whole matter from a professional perspective. Everything I have heard until now suggests that security pressure was exerted on party officials and that was the reason behind choosing those journalists.

Does this mean the party has been infiltrated by state security?

Frankly speaking, yes. You'll not find a political party in Egypt which is not infiltrated by state security. Yet in our party such infiltration remains limited.

This, I believe, is due to the crisis we are going through and the party's youthfulness. After all, we've only been in the field for five months.

US pressure for your release led some to hint that the party has direct connections with Washington while others accused the party of receiving financial aid from the US.

The Al-Ghad Party is above suspicion. We have never received a penny, from the Egyptian government or from any foreign government. Let them ask US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, if they do not believe us.

Our finance comes mainly from the party's members, who paid all the expenses of the first general congress. Whoever repeats such nonsense is simply mudslinging.

Then how do you explain US support? And do you think such support was the reason behind your release?

I did not ask for this support and cannot be held responsible for it. Yet I cannot blame anyone for supporting me. I am not against foreign support, but against foreign intervention. That we will never allow when our party comes to power.

My release was natural, given that I was the wronged party. The US had nothing to do with my release. If anything, it came as a result of strong popular support.

Some believe that US support may negatively affect Al-Ghad's popularity.

I don't think so. People are smart enough to know who has connections with the US, who makes pilgrimages to the US and who receives financial aid from them.

What is your response to the attitude of the People's Assembly and its Human Rights Committee regarding your case?

Compared with the support I received from the European parliament the People's Assembly was shameful. As for its Human Rights Committee, I think it would be better if they dissolved it. We do not need a committee the only role of which is to mask the ugly image of the state.

I sent a letter to the People's Assembly speaker telling him that my life was in danger. The committee members only started to do something after 10 days and even then faked a report about my health, denying that I had been tortured or had any health problems, while in fact I am diabetic and have a heart condition.

And what about the attitude of the opposition parties?

Some of the opposition parties, the Nasserist Party and Al-Geel Al-Dimoqrati (democratic generation) Party adopted honourable stances for which I thank them. Others preferred not to declare their support for me.

As for the rest, those who took the opportunity to settle old accounts and stab me in the back, I hope they are ashamed of themselves. Their position backfired and instead of harming me they were themselves belittled in the eyes of the public.

Reuters : Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour was ordered released on bail from prison

Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour was ordered released on bail from prison, a judicial official said Saturday, a detention that had caused tension with Washington.

Egypt released on bail on Saturday Ayman Nour, an opposition leader who has been in detention since the end of January, the public prosecutor said.

Maher Abdel-Wahed told a news conference Nour and five others had been freed on bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,724) each in connection with the case involving allegations that Nour's Ghad (Tomorrow) party forged documents when it applied for recognition last year.

The prosecutor said the investigation was continuing.

The party has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated fabrications.
"They are in the process of getting him (Nour) out of the court room," Ghad party member Mazen Mostafa told Reuters after the announcement, adding that some procedural issues had to be completed before Nour could walk out.

Party members were preparing a greeting party later on Saturday at Ghad's offices in central Cairo, Mostafa said.

A close associate of Nour left jail on Friday after more than five weeks of detention for questioning about allegations against Nour.

Nour has been a vocal advocate of constitutional change and welcomed President Hosni Mubarak's proposal last month to change the constitution to allow multi-candidate elections to replace the existing single-candidate referendum.

He announced his intention to run for the presidency in the first edition of the party's newspaper that came out this week.

The proposal to amend the constitution is currently working its way through parliament.

The United States has said it has "very strong concerns" about the Nour case but Nour has said he has not asked for and does not want any foreign intervention.

Watson calls on Egypt to release Ayman Nour

11.21.14am GMT Tue 1st Feb 2005

On hearing of the arrest yesterday of Ayman Nour, member of the Egyptian parliament and leader of the liberal opposition party al-Ghad ("Tomorrow"), Graham Watson, leader of the European Liberal Democrat Group in the European Parliament called upon President Mubarak and the Egyptian authorities to respect both the letter and the spirit of the EU-Mediterranean Agreement.

"2005 marks the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona process and represents an opportunity for a new stimulus to EU-Mediterranean relations. This kind of politically-motivated arrest of the leader of the only real opposition movement in a country dominated by a single ruling party sends all the wrong signals - that Egypt still has far to go on the road to democracy," he said.

"Political legitimacy derives precisely from a free choice of the electorate from a range of political viewpoints and not from imposing one view on everyone. Approaching the end of his fourth term of office, Mubarak should seize the opportunity of going down in history for supporting constitutional reform and a multi-party democracy. The EU should not stand idly by in the face of blatant disregard for the rule of law in its relations with privileged partner states. If Ayman Nour is not released promptly, collective EU action should be considered. Parliament should address this matter in its next 'urgency debate' on Human Rights on the 24th February if the matter has not been resolved, " Mr. Watson added.

EMMA BONINO introduces an urgent written question to the European Commission and Council

ARREST OF EGYPTIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT AYMAN NOUR : EMMA BONINO INTRODUCES AN URGENT WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND COUNCIL

Bruxelles, 1st February 2005-02-01

Emma Bonino, Member of the European Parliament and former member of the European Commission, introduced an urgent written question to the European Commission and Council with regard to the arrest of the lawyer Ayman Nour, Egyptian Member of Parliament and President of the party Egypt Tomorrow (El Ghad), on 29 January 2005, in front of the Egyptian Parliament, immediately after it lifted his parliamentary immunity.

Emma Bonino underlined that Ayman Nour was subject to investigations by the Supreme State Security Office, one of the tribunals established under the emergency law in vigour since 1981.

Within the frame of the Euro-Mediterranean relations, the European Union signed bilateral association agreements with Egypt which entered into force on 1 June 2004, and is based on the respect of principles of democracy and respect of human rights.

In view of the lifting of Ayman Nour's parliamentary immunities which is a clear infringement of the internal regulations of the People's Assembly, Emma Bonino seeks the support of the European institutions and in particular stresses the strict application of Article 2 of the Association Agreement.