Ayman Nour no longer allowed to publish

Egypt´s higher administrative court issued a ruling stating that Ayman Nour will not be allowed to publish articles. according to a judicial source that AFP spoke to.

The distant second in the 2005 Presidential election , Ayman Nour of al Ghad party, in jail for two years serving a five years sentence on what many claim is a trumped up charge of forging signatures to complete the application of the Ghad Party to go official. One key witness changed his testimony during trial.

The verdict was an answer to an appeal from Nour whom were rejecting an appeal from Nur against a ruling handed down in January that included not being alloved recieving or sending letters.

At least he is allowed to write, and maybe do yoga.... do they think he will do as Sayyid Qutb and write a manifesto denouncing the government and the state of the country as authocratic and undemocratic(rather than Jahiliyya) or what?

UPDATE: Bush, democracy, and the WEF speech

Jeffrey Fleishman also writes about it, and adds:

Nour was on the minds Egyptians on Sunday, when President Bush, speaking in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, criticized Middle East governments for silencing their opponents: "Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," he said.

I for one could not bring myself to write about the lofty rhetoric from the leader of the free world this time, as i have been in the past, and apparently i wasn´t the only one, albeit for different reasons. If one should take anything that the father of the freedom agenda says seriously it´s surely not his speeches on democracy, it´s far more important to pay attention to what his administration fail to say. Speeking out clearly on behalf of human and political rights, regardless of whom it may involve, would have made people listen, but with a track record full of lofty language and empty words, more often neglected than not on the ground.

Perhaps democracy promotion has been pushed aside by more important security considerations in the post 9/11 world of the Bush administration, but the fact that many of the countries that Bush talked about very harshly in his speech, has been the best of allies when it comes to intelligence sharing and giving more than a helping hand to cater for renditions(even countries percieved as part of the axis of evil helped out, a small clue - they officially started a process of peace talks with their arch enemy today, with a post-islamist government as sponsor for the talks), is probably the most important reason why it´s very hard to be taken seriously on democracy promotion. One can not be both human rights violator,democracy trasher and at the same time promote democracy.

Mona al Shazly interview with Dubya

Here is the much talked about interview that 10 PM´s Mona al Shazly on dream TV did with George Bush earlier this week in the map room of the White house. It´s only 8 minutes and four questions. On the relations between the U.S and Egypt and the situation for democracy in Egypt. Israel and Palestine as Israel celebrates 60 years since the state came in to being and the Palestinians commemorate al Naqba. Then the question if he still believed in the ¨You´re with us or against us¨ dogma. And then the perception of many Arabs , that the U.S helped in creating the current situation and on how history will judge George W Bush´s legacy as President. The interview is in Arabic, but the White house transcript can be viewed here

I also throw in an interview with Mona herself on how this interview came about. This was done prior to airing the interview with the President.

There is a second part of the show after the interview, a discusssion with the Egyptian ambassador to Washington Nabil Fahmy and an interview with carnegie scholar Dr Amr Hamzawy talking about the interview and US policy towards Egypt, i will post it here as soon as i get my hands on it. There is also a two part interview with former American ambasador to Cairo , Francis J. Ricciardone in Middle East Progress that could be useful for context here(Part I) and here(Part II). The first part is on Egypt´s regional role and the second part on domestic issues.

Thank you Mr President !

President Bush has left the Middle East after eight days , six countries and a occupied territory, that he expects to be on the verge of independence by the end of his term in office. I´m not going to dwell on the whirlwind tour right now, let´s save something for later.

I just want to share the transcript of the official statements from the last leg of the trip, in Sharm al Sheikh the press conference with President´s Mubarak and Bush at the four seasons hotel just hours ago, and the most interesting part was perhaps the fact that President Bush was paying tribute to Egyptian civil society, journalists, bloggers and Judges.

Progress toward greater political openness is being led by the Egyptians themselves, by pioneering journalists -- some of whom even may be here -- bloggers, or judges insisting on independence, or other strong civic and religious leaders who love their country and are determined to build a democratic future.

Mr President, let me take the opportunity to thank you personally for those kind words.

Those kind words together with the omission of Egypt among countries making progress in the major speech on democracy in the region that Bush gave in Abu Dhabi last Sunday, apart from these short sentences following below, and believed to be meant for Egypt is the strongest language used since the ¨the freedom agenda administration began backtracking on democracy in the land of peace after the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats(20 percent) in parliament elections in the Autumn of 2005.

Unfortunately, amid some steps forward in this region we've also seen some setbacks. You cannot build trust when you hold an election where opposition candidates find themselves harassed or in prison. You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government. And you cannot stand up a modern and confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms

The lines above could be read as a critique of the five year prison sentence of Ayman Nour, and perhaps, although not likely for the one year sentence of Talaát Sadat, both of whom were candidates in the Presidential elections in September 2005. Added to the list is also the current leader of the Wafd, who awaits a 30 day sentence as publisher of the party newspaper. You could also hope that the administration thinks of people like Khairat al Shater,third in rank in the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of the group with him facing military court, although all of them being civilians in a long trial which has been dragging on for the most part of the year after the case was dismissed twice in civil courts, Or the hundreds that have been arrested from the same organization during the two years since the double election year in 2005.

Two words that was completely absent from today´s statements was human rights,although it was mentioned implicitly by President Bush , who thanked Egypt for their help in the war on terror. That is to say among other things render the U.S a helping hand in providing full board accommodation to V.I.P´s for longer or shorter durations at state of the art facilities.

The front page and leading article in the Independent of London looked like this on the 14th of January after the Abu Dhabi speech.



I will not ask or expect you to do the walk, Mr President, i´ve seen enough of how your administration works to know that short term security and stability always takes precedence over long term strategic thinking as well as to human rights, rule of law and democratization.

But once again, thank you for those kind words Mr President...

The first photo were the two Presidents is pointing out the road ahead towards democracy(Reminds of the photos of Barak(Not Obama) and Arafat at Camp David in the summer of 2000)is taken, with courtesy of EPA.