Inside Egypt's Opposition - Ayman Nour 2005

BBC News - 'Travel ban' on Egypt party chief

'Travel ban' on Egypt party chief

Nour was one of Rice's most honoured guests on Monday

Egyptian police have prevented opposition politician Ayman Nour from leaving the country to speak at the European Parliament, he says.

Mr Nour is due to stand trial next month for forging signatures on his party's registration documents.

The young lawyer called his treatment "unconstitutional". He says the charges against him are politically motivated.

On Monday, he was one of a number of opposition activists who met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

He was on his way to Strasbourg to address the parliament when he says he was stopped at Cairo's international airport.

"This is unconstitutional and it is politically motivated," Mr Nour told the Associated Press news agency.

Presidential challenge

Mr Nour will stand trial next week in a criminal court along with six other defendants from his al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party.

He says he hopes to stand against President Hosni Mubarak in country's first multi-candidate presidential elections due in September.

Mr Nour was released on bail on 12 March after six weeks in prison over the alleged forgery case. His detention without charge raised concern in Washington, which called for his release.

If he is convicted he would be disqualified from the presidential race.

On her recent visit Ms Rice criticised Cairo for cracking down on dissenters and called on it to ensure the upcoming election was free and fair. Among her talks with opposition figures on Monday, she held a 45-minute meeting with Mr Nour.

BBC News - Winds of change blow through Egypt politics

Winds of change blow through Egypt politics

Among all the opposition protests have been pro-Mubarak rallies

"Political congestion" is the phrase Egyptians are using to describe a deepening stand-off between the opposition and the government.

The opposition is not strong enough to bring down the government. But the government - wary of a possible international outcry - cannot quash the opposition by force.

Two snapshots of what is happening on the streets of Cairo illustrate the situation quite dramatically.

On the day parliament approved a change to the constitution to allow Egyptians to choose their president in a direct vote for the first time in their history, the opposition movement, Kifaya, called a news conference to denounce the proposed amendment.

Kifaya says the change puts insurmountable hurdles in the path of anyone wanting to challenge President Hosni Mubarak, who has led Egypt for 24 years and may still run for another six-year term in elections in September.

We believe in democracy and political pluralism. What we want is civilian rule within an Islamic framework. There should be no contradiction between democracy and Sharia Mohammad al-Sayyed Habeeb Muslim Brotherhood

Shortly before the opposition news conference was due to start, the ruling National Democratic Party bussed its "supporters" - a crowd of poor women from the countryside - to the venue, carrying banners and chanting slogans in support of Mr Mubarak.

One woman I spoke to did not appear to know why she was there. "It seems that there is an election," she added, oblivious to the man trying to stop her talking to the media.

Demonstrations everywhere

As the pro-Mubarak chanting continued, members of the Kifaya movement were forced to retreat and held a chaotic news conference inside the building.

Outside, the riot police threw a cordon around the entire area, turning the political stand-off into a real traffic jam.

The second "snapshot" incident occured a few hours later, when the interior ministry deployed 10 armoured trucks full of soldiers in riot gear and dozens of plain-clothed policemen to prevent another demonstration in a different part of town.

A group of engineers had called a protest outside their union, which has been under government control for the past 10 years. The engineers want to hold elections for a new board.

Riot police have been out in force and hundreds of protesters arrested

The sight of so many anti-riot police ranged against a handful of men was a sign of the regime's growing nervousness in the face of mounting frustration and resentment among Egypt's relatively small, but increasingly bold, political class.

In recent months, protesters have taken to the streets in a way not seen in Egypt for decades.

Men and women calling for Mr Mubarak to step down dare to make their demands in public demonstrations. Many protesters have been arrested, because under emergency law, the right to demonstrate is severely restricted.

The change in mood came last year with the emergence of the Kifaya movement, an umbrella organisation that brings together secularists and Islamists.

Kifaya, which means "enough" in Arabic, is a short and pithy way of expressing the resentment and desire for change its members feel, but it is not yet the political mass movement it aspires to be.

Tough restrictions

Under the constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate elections, only a political party that has been registered for five years and holds 5% of seats in parliament can nominate a candidate.

Existing party leaders will be exempted from this restriction for September's election. But independent candidates must be endorsed by 250 elected members of parliament and local councils.

These conditions, the opposition says, are absurd because they will make a nominee dependent on the support of his political rivals to run for the presidency.

If the elections were not rigged, I would be happy with a requirement of 50% backing in parliament Ayman Nour Opposition leader

But the government says constraints on presidential candidacy are quite common in other parts of the world.

Parliamentary speaker Dr Ahmad Fathi Serour - a stalwart of the ruling NDP - points to the French constitution, which stipulates that the candidate must have 500 signatures of elected politicians; and to the constitution of Indonesia, which requires that parties have 15% of seats in the parliament to nominate a presidential candidate.

The problem is not the 5%, says Ayman Nour, the articulate and ambitious leader of the new al-Ghad party (Tomorrow).

"Everyone in Egypt knows that the parliament elections in Egypt are rigged," he says. "If the elections were not rigged, I would be happy with a requirement of 50% backing in parliament."

Biggest party banned

Under the new constitutional amendment, the country's largest and most popular group will also be effectively barred from nominating a candidate. The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed as the Egyptian constitution bans religious political parties.

The group itself says there can never be true democracy without its involvement.

Ayman Nour addresses supporters at a chaotic rally

Deputy leader Mohammad al-Sayyed Habeeb denies any contradiction between democracy and the application of Islamic Sharia law, which the group is calling for.

"We believe in democracy and political pluralism," Mr Habeeb tells me at the group's office in Cairo.

"What we want is civilian rule within an Islamic framework. Just as there is civilian rule within a liberal, or capitalist or socialist framework, there can also be civilian rule within an Islamic framework.

"There should be no contradiction between democracy and Sharia, which has to be implemented, but only with the full backing of the people and never to be imposed upon them."

Some analysts believe the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood has only added to its popularity. Imad el-Din Shahin of the American University in Cairo says there may be some exaggeration of the power and popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dr Shahin says that the Egyptians sympathise with the underdog and "the Muslim Brothers have been denied their legitimate rights".

Cut off from politics

But despite the current intense activity on the political scene in Egypt, the majority of Egypt's 70 million people remain cut off from politics and more significantly from the agenda of the opposition.

"We are farmers, we don't understand politics," said a ferryman who transports farmers and their fresh produce from a small island in the Nile to the urban districts of Cairo.

Some of the passengers laughed and giggled when I asked them whether they would vote again for Mr Mubarak in the forthcoming presidential election. They all said yes.

Perhaps it is not surprising that they feel the way they do about Mr Mubarak.

Many of them have grown up with him, and they continue to be fed a diet by the state media of Mr Mubarak as a great hero, almost a national symbol.

And as long as political activity is so severely restricted, and the government keeps its stranglehold on television and radio, then the opposition will continue to find it difficult to reach out to the wider public.

Egyptian election a high-risk undertaking

Jackson Diehl
The Windsor Star

Ayman Nour, the liberal Egyptian opposition politician whose jailing early this year has made him the leading challenger to President Hosni Mubarak, recently tried to launch his campaign for September's presidential election by knocking on doors. Police stopped him, telling him he didn't have permission.

He tried to stage a conference for 1,500 of his supporters. A fire set by pro-government thugs forced the temporary clearing of the hall. When that failed to stop the meeting, the electricity was cut off.

It gets worse. Nour says he has been served with a court order mandating demolition of a community centre he has maintained in the Cairo neighbourhood of Bab al Shariya, his political base. Pro-government newspapers have reported that his penthouse apartment also will be demolished. One weekly paper that recently began appearing alongside Nour's party organ at newsstands published an article detailing how the 40-year-old parliamentarian might be assassinated: A sniper, it predicted, would open fire on his car.

Then there is the continuing criminal case, which almost everyone outside Mubarak's government, and some inside it, regards as blatantly political. A trial date has been set for June 28, and Nour says the case has been assigned to a notorious Egyptian security court judge. That judge is known for his closeness to Mubarak and for the seven-year sentence he imposed four years ago on another liberal dissident, Saad Eddin Ibrahim.

"I lie in bed at night thinking that either I'm going to end up in jail or I'm going to be killed," a visibly anxious Nour told me last week. "To say the least, this campaign has gotten off to a very bad start."

If so, the prospect is bad not just for Nour but for Mubarak, who effectively has staked his legacy and the future of the regime he leads on his promise to replace the rigged referendum that has previously extended his rule with a multi-candidate democratic election. There's little doubt the 76-year-old Mubarak will win the election, in part because it will exclude unsanctioned political parties --including the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's powerful Islamic movement. But a free and fair election within those limits -- with access to the media and full freedom to campaign for Nour and the two or three other candidates who might challenge Mubarak -- would be seen by most Egyptians and many outsiders, including the Bush administration, as a political breakthrough.

On the other hand, an electoral farce featuring the persecution or jailing of Nour and the ballot-box stuffing widely reported in previous Egyptian elections would eliminate the possibility that Egypt, like Mexico or South Korea, will be led to democracy by its ruling party.

AGGRESSIVE EFFORT

It could also scatter the group of young technocrats who, under Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, have embarked on an aggressive effort to liberalize the economy and modernize the regime. The prosecution of Nour, one told me, is intended "to stop the reforms."

Nazif, whose tax and tariff cutting and privatization of state companies have prompted a 130-per-cent gain in the Cairo stock market since last summer, insists the government is committed to real change. "We led peace. We can lead political reform," he said, echoing the phrase President Bush has used for Egypt. He added: "We don't have any differences" with Washington "on where we want to be. We might have some differences on the tactics and the pace." A senior Egyptian security official I spoke to was more circumspect, but also adamant. "This won't be the Tunisian model," he said, referring to the farcical multi-candidate election staged by strongman Zine Abidine Ben Ali last year. "It will be fair, it will be open and it will be under the eyes of everyone in our society."

The real meaning of these pledges is now being hammered out in official committees that are drafting the constitutional amendment providing for presidential elections, the law that will govern this year's campaign and the ruling party's platform.

Regime liberals are pressing for a month-long window in which opposition candidates will each get two hours a week on state television; a suspension of emergency regulations that now bar them from holding public rallies and demonstrations; public financing for their campaigns; a nonpartisan authority to manage the election and, crucially, international observers to guarantee that the balloting will be fair and the count honest. Intriguingly, the national judges' union recently declared that its members will not supervise polling places, as had been expected, unless Mubarak accepts reform legislation making the judiciary more independent.

Yet the liberals concede that even if they win all their battles, they have no control over the prosecution of Nour, which is in the hands of Mubarak and his security apparatus. Nazif said the case could be wrapped up in June, allowing Nour to campaign freely if he is acquitted. But the security official I spoke to said the case would be extended, after a preliminary session, until October -- meaning that Nour will run with the prospect of being sentenced to a prison term after Mubarak is safely re-elected.

"This is a battle about the future," Nour said. "They want to convict me, even if only for a day, so that I can't run for president or parliament again." That would help clear the path for Mubarak's son Gamal, who, like Nour, is in his 40s. It would also propel Egypt toward the very political turmoil and international isolation that Mubarak seeks to avoid.

Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post. He filed this column from Cairo

Washington Post : Battle for Egypt's Future

By Jackson Diehl

Monday, April 25, 2005

CAIRO -- Ayman Nour, the liberal Egyptian opposition politician whose jailing early this year has made him the leading challenger to President Hosni Mubarak, recently tried to launch his campaign for September's presidential election by knocking on doors. Police stopped him, telling him he didn't have permission. He tried to stage a conference for 1,500 of his supporters. A fire set by pro-government thugs forced the temporary clearing of the hall. When that failed to stop the meeting, the electricity was cut off.

It gets worse. Nour says he has been served with a court order mandating demolition of a community center he has maintained in the Cairo neighborhood of Bab al Shariya, his political base. Pro-government newspapers have reported that his penthouse apartment also will be demolished. One weekly paper that recently began appearing alongside Nour's party organ at newsstands published an article detailing how the 40-year-old parliamentarian might be assassinated: A sniper, it predicted, would open fire on his car.

Then there is the continuing criminal case, which almost everyone outside Mubarak's government, and some inside it, regards as blatantly political. A trial date has been set for June 28, and Nour says the case has been assigned to a notorious Egyptian security court judge. That judge is known for his closeness to Mubarak and for the seven-year sentence he imposed four years ago on another liberal dissident, Saad Eddin Ibrahim. "I lie in bed at night thinking that either I'm going to end up in jail or I'm going to be killed," a visibly anxious Nour told me last week. "To say the least, this campaign has gotten off to a very bad start."

If so, the prospect is bad not just for Nour but for Mubarak, who effectively has staked his legacy and the future of the regime he leads on his promise to replace the rigged referendum that has previously extended his rule with a multi-candidate democratic election. There's little doubt the 76-year-old Mubarak will win the election, in part because it will exclude unsanctioned political parties--including the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's powerful Islamic movement. But a free and fair election within those limits--with access to the media and full freedom to campaign for Nour and the two or three other candidates who might challenge Mubarak--would be seen by most Egyptians and many outsiders, including the Bush administration, as a political breakthrough.

On the other hand, an electoral farce featuring the persecution or jailing of Nour and the ballot-box stuffing widely reported in previous Egyptian elections would eliminate the possibility that Egypt, like Mexico or South Korea, will be led to democracy by its ruling party. It could also scatter the group of young technocrats who, under Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, have embarked on an aggressive effort to liberalize the economy and modernize the regime. The prosecution of Nour, one told me, is intended "to stop the reforms." Nazif, whose tax and tariff cutting and privatization of state companies have prompted a 130 percent gain in the Cairo stock market since last summer, insists the government is committed to real change. "We led peace. We can lead political reform," he said, echoing the phrase President Bush has used for Egypt. He added: "We don't have any differences" with Washington "on where we want to be. We might have some differences on the tactics and the pace." A senior Egyptian security official I spoke to was more circumspect, but also adamant. "This won't be the Tunisian model," he said, referring to the farcical multi-candidate election staged by strongman Zine Abidine Ben Ali last year. "It will be fair, it will be open and it will be under the eyes of everyone in our society."

The real meaning of these pledges is now being hammered out in official committees that are drafting the constitutional amendment providing for presidential elections, the law that will govern this year's campaign and the ruling party's platform. Regime liberals are pressing for a month-long window in which opposition candidates will each get two hours a week on state television; a suspension of emergency regulations that now bar them from holding public rallies and demonstrations; public financing for their campaigns; a nonpartisan authority to manage the election and, crucially, international observers to guarantee that the balloting will be fair and the count honest. Intriguingly, the national judges' union recently declared that its members will not supervise polling places, as had been expected, unless Mubarak accepts reform legislation making the judiciary more independent.

Yet the liberals concede that even if they win all their battles, they have no control over the prosecution of Nour, which is in the hands of Mubarak and his security apparatus. Nazif said the case could be wrapped up in June, allowing Nour to campaign freely if he is acquitted. But the security official I spoke to said the case would be extended, after a preliminary session, until October--meaning that Nour will run with the prospect of being sentenced to a prison term after Mubarak is safely reelected.

"This is a battle about the future," Nour said. "They want to convict me, even if only for a day, so that I can't run for president or parliament again." That would help clear the path for Mubarak's son Gamal, who, like Nour, is in his forties. It would also propel Egypt toward the very political turmoil and international isolation that Mubarak seeks to avoid.

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.

The Washington Post : Egypt Holds Candidate Despite Vow Of Reform

Egypt Holds Candidate Despite Vow Of Reform

By Daniel Williams

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page A01

CAIRO, March 11 -- Two weeks after President Hosni Mubarak announced that Egypt would hold multi-candidate presidential elections, the first politician to say he would run was sitting in jail.

Inmate No. 1387 at Tora jail is Ayman Nour, a lawyer and member of parliament. His normal residence is a penthouse apartment decorated with bronze French Empire-style knickknacks, gigantic gilt mirrors and a plaster image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing upward.

Ayman Nour, right, a candidate for president of Egypt, is surrounded by police at a court appearance in late January. (Nasser Nouri -- AP)

Nour, whose small Tomorrow Party was legalized in October and holds six seats in Egypt's 454-member parliament, is only one of thousands of Egyptian political figures jailed during decades of authoritarian rule. Yet since his arrest Jan. 29 on suspicion of forging official documents, his fate has become intertwined with the destiny of political change in Egypt.

State Department and European Union officials, all pressing for democratic reform, have complained about his detention. Pro-government reformists who dispute Nour on the details and pace of change nonetheless express concern that his internment will discredit their own efforts. Government officials reject complaints that Nour is being persecuted and insist that his case is a domestic legal question and not the business of outsiders. And the people of Cairo, legendarily indifferent to politics, are debating the justice of his case.

The extent of Nour's popularity is difficult to gauge -- there have been no polls on prospective presidential candidates. Mustafa Kamel Sayed, a political science professor at Cairo University, said recently that Nour might be able to win 20 or even 30 percent of the vote in a race against Mubarak.

Regardless, his arrest exposes the uncertainty of a government that feels itself under siege, observers say. The Bush administration has singled out Egypt as overripe for reform. Political demonstrators are becoming increasingly loud and anti-Mubarak, even though they are still far outnumbered by phalanxes of police officers. The government appears reluctant to risk letting an independent politician run free.

"Fear makes for political mistakes. Everything is up in the air, and you will find cases like Nour's," said Hala Mustafa, editor in chief of the al-Ahram Democracy Review, part of a government-backed reform research group. She declined to comment on the merits of Nour's case.

Aida Seif Dawla, a longtime left-wing activist and human rights campaigner, said it was "an extremely weak moment for the government. It's not just Nour. Far from it. They pick up people handing out leaflets at the book fair. The government wants to give the appearance of making a new start, but it's not going to take any risks."

At first blush, Nour seems an unlikely political martyr. He campaigned for competitive presidential elections, but he is far from a revolutionary. In an interview two days before his arrest, he predicted that whatever the conditions, this year's election would simply extend Mubarak's 24-year reign for another six years. In October, he told a reporter, "We love and appreciate President Mubarak, but we love this nation as well and would like to develop it like other countries."

Said Gamila Ismail, Nour's wife and political aide: "Ayman was the most surprised of all about his arrest. He never gave it a second thought."

Nour had taken positions recently, however, that were daring by the standards of Egyptian political discourse. On the eve of a meeting between Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party and opposition groups, he sent a letter demanding that Mubarak attend the conference; otherwise, Nour said he would not. This assertion of equality irritated the president, party insiders said. Nour was jailed three days before the conference opened.

Nour's associates say he also had told them that he thought Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, was pressing her husband to arrange for their son Gamal to succeed him.

That kind of talk is risky, despite an easing of repression that has brought life to a political scene still restricted by quarter-century-old emergency laws. Security agents telephone foreign correspondents' Egyptian assistants to ask whom they are talking to and about what. This week, when the Tomorrow Party issued the first edition of its newspaper -- in which Nour announced his candidacy -- police held up distribution for a day to review the articles.

"Nour's problem is that he has been acting in excess of his real political influence," said Ali Abdel Fattah, an official of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, an Islamic-based organization once associated with violence in Egypt, is banned from politics but is regarded as the country's biggest opposition force.

On the morning of Jan. 29, Nour received notification that his immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament was being lifted. He rushed to the People's Assembly building and was told that police were investigating forgeries among documents he submitted last year to the government in his bid to have his party legalized. When legislators -- 85 percent of whom belong to Mubarak's party -- voted to expose Nour to prosecution, he responded heatedly: "I put myself in the hands of God and the Egyptian people. All know I am innocent." He turned to the head of parliament and labeled him "unjust." The legislature later struck the words from the record.

A few minutes after his arrest, police searched his apartment, while his wife and two children were present. The 15 agents went through computer disks, inspected his medicine cabinet and even took samples of pipe tobacco, Ismail said

Prosecutors and a court have until Tuesday to decide whether to press charges or release him. Late Thursday, prosecutors announced the release of one of Nour's associates, Ayman Barakat, who also was detained on forgery charges.

In effect, the stage is set for a test of Egypt's reform efforts and its relations with the United States, which provides the country $2 billion in annual aid. On Jan. 31, State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said, "The arrest, in our minds, raises questions about the outlook for democratic process in Egypt." Two weeks later, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit about the Bush administration's "strong concerns."

Although Egyptian officials are reluctant to publicly comment on the case, they insist that the allegations are valid. "The issue of Ayman Nour is an issue related to criminal accusations," Aboul Gheit said in an interview. "There are no political considerations. It remains with the attorney general to decide, without interference of outside powers."

The case hinges on the activities of a Tomorrow Party member who told police he forged numerous documents with signatures of people purporting to back the party's legalization bid -- all at Nour's request. Only 50 such papers are needed, but Nour provided more than 2,000. Prosecutors contend that more than 1,000 were forgeries.

Nour's attorney, Amir Salem, a human rights activist who has been jailed nine times, said Nour forged no documents and the informer was a plant. "I've never seen a frame-up prepared like this," he said.

Nour, 40, has been involved in politics since high school. His father was a pioneer member of the Wafd Party, a group that dates from the 1920s. "I remember seeing him 21 years ago get out of his late-model Mercedes and go right into student meetings to play politics," Mazen Mustafa, a Tomorrow Party member, said of the younger Nour. "He was different from others. He liked to let others speak."

Fifteen years ago, Nour published a book presenting liberalism as an alternative to Islamic politics. In 1994, he won a seat in parliament representing Cairo's Bab ash-Shariya district, a teeming neighborhood of butchers and farm supply shops. He broke with Wafd five years ago because he came to believe the party was too tame, ran again in Bab ash-Shariya and won. "He is ambitious, that is for sure," said Wael Nawara, another Tomorrow member.

In parliament, Nour carried out investigations of everything from bread prices to torture, endearing himself to his impoverished constituency, supporters say. He operated a charity office and community center in Bab ash-Shariya that provided medical advice, a hall for free weddings and school lessons for children.

On Wednesday, at a teahouse in Bab ash-Shariya, a laborer said Nour was guilty only of "trying to be president and be democratic. . . . He cares about this area. He paved sidewalks and planted trees."

A critic arrived and began to sing the praises of Mubarak: "He should stay in office forever. Ayman Nour must have done something wrong or he wouldn't be in jail."

"This is democracy?" countered the laborer. "Anyone who speaks up can end up in the same trouble."

That night, Nour's supporters held a candlelight vigil to demand his release. About 50 demonstrators and at least three times as many police officers showed up.