Less than a week after U.S. President George W. Bush urged his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, to institute democratic reforms, human rights groups are worried that the long-time leader has instead launched a new crackdown against the political opposition.
Since late last month, Egyptian security forces have arrested a number of prominent political activists in Egypt, one of whom, journalist Ibrahim al-Sahar of the al-Alam Alyoum newspaper, launched a hunger strike Monday to protest his detention at Tura prison near Cairo.
The crackdown has taken place in advance of a "national dialogue" to be convened by Mubarak to discuss possible political reforms in advance of presidential and parliamentary elections in September and October, respectively.
Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since the assassination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, 24 years ago, is expected to run for a new term.
Indeed, one of those arrested, Ayman Nur, had called for constitutional amendments to allow more than one candidate to run for the presidency. Under Egypt’s constitution, parliament nominates a single candidate and voters must check either "yes" or "no" on the ballot.
As a member of the National Assembly, Nur was stripped of his parliamentary immunity Jan. 29 and detained by state security officers, who also punched him during the arrest, as he left the parliament building.
"The government raised hopes that Egypt was turning a new page on human rights when it permitted a public demonstration against President Mubarak in December," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), which sent a letter to Mubarak protesting the arrests Friday.
"But today, the government’s radical crackdown on peaceful dissent sends the message that there’s no place for democratic freedoms under Mubarak," she added.
The arrests began a week after Bush delivered his inaugural address dominated by a sweeping vision of U.S. foreign policy as dedicated to the spread of freedom, liberty, and democracy throughout the world.
That speech was followed up last Wednesday by his State of the Union address in which he elaborated on that vision, stressing in particular, his hopes for democratic transformation throughout the Middle East.
While analysts expected him to celebrate the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq and assail Syria and Iran in that context, they were surprised that he also explicitly – albeit somewhat gently – named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as nations that needed to reform.
"[T]he great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East," he said, "can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."
Since those remarks, however, the administration, which has been focused more on Wednesday’s meeting, which is to be hosted by Mubarak, between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has been relatively quiet about the arrests, although the State Department denounced Nur’s detention.
Nur’s arrest, on charges that he forged more than a thousand signatures in an application seeking the legal registration of his new party, al-Ghad, was particularly flagrant both because the lawmaker had been outspoken in urging constitutional reform and because of the rough and public manner in which it was carried out.
Although Nur has strongly denied the accusations, the Supreme State Security prosecution services extended his detention order extended his detention for 45 days on Jan. 31 in what Amnesty said suggested further evidence that the arrest was politically motivated.
"[Nur] is one of Egypt’s most prominent opposition leaders, and his arrest, in our mind, raises questions about the outlook for democratic process in Egypt," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who also noted that the timing before the national dialogue was "incongruous."
But his was not the only arrest.
On Jan. 28, security forces detained al-Sahar, lawyer Marwa Faruq, and a student, Baho Baksh, on charges of "incitement against public order" as they distributed leaflets at the annual Cairo International Book Fair calling for a demonstration Feb. 4 against Mubarak’s standing unopposed for a fifth six-year term or handing over the presidency to his son, Gamal. The three were given 14-day sentences.
Also on Jan. 29, security forces raided the Book Fair booth of Dar Mirit, an independent private publishing house, and confiscated the materials of the Socialist Studies Center, despite the fact that the Center and its publications are both legally registered, according to HRW.
In addition, the Ministry of Culture’s National Book Authority, which sponsors the Book Fair, banned Dr. Mohamed al-Sayyid Sa’id, deputy director of the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, from scheduled appearances at the Fair after he made remarks at a public meeting with Mubarak on the necessity for constitutional reform.
On Jan. 31, police reportedly carried out pre-dawn raids in Zagazig, a provincial capital in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, and arrested nine people allegedly associated with the Muslim Brothers, among them medical doctors, engineers, a university professor, and a mosque leader. They are reportedly accused of "membership in an illegal organization" and supporting members who may be candidates for the National Assembly.
"In this context, Amnesty International fears that the arrest of Ayman Nour and the ongoing wave of arrests of alleged Muslim Brothers might be politically motivated," the London-based group said. "They appear to be used as a means to intimidate members of the opposition and critics of the government and to obstruct their political activities."
In its statement, Amnesty stressed that extended detentions of opposition figures and other actions to intimidate dissidents were a typical tactic of the regime.
Last November, Abd al-Halim Qandeel, editor of the opposition newspaper al-Araby, was assaulted by men in civilian clothes, was gagged and blindfolded, and was beaten and stripped before being dumped on the main highway between Cairo and Suez. The attack was believed to be an attempt to persuade him to halt criticism of the government and his calls for constitutional change.
Last May, 60 alleged members of the banned Muslim Brothers were arrested in the run-up to the May 2004 elections to the Shura Council, Egypt’s upper house. Several were reportedly tortured, and one, Zkram Zohairy, apparently died in custody. The rest were released without charge in November.
(Inter Press Service)
