Ayman Nour gets a five year prison sentence on forgery

The news is just out on the Ayman Nour court case. It´s not good. He recieved a verdict of five years in prison for forgery. This really resembles the Saad Eddin Ibrahim case in 2000. It´s the ¨perfect¨ christmas gift to people working toward achieving democratization. I was hoping for a orange christmnas, but knew in my heart of hearts, that this would be a blue christmas. My heart goes out to Ayman and his family in this dark hour. The promises of the new thinking in the NDP is echoing very hollow at this particular moment in time, the verdict comming after a week of new promises on progress in democratization and freedom of expression. One election promise still waiting for implementation is the cancellation of the Emergency laws, in place more or less since 1967. This would be the most important step en route to democracy. But of course any hope for the current political leadership evaporated on the 25th of May this year, proven false once again in early December, so the probable outcome is the scraping of the emergency laws, while a new anti-terror law curtailing the space of freedom in much the same way, will come in to practice.

Ayman Nour