Word: egypt
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...after the article appeared last June, police paid Ibrahim a midnight visit and hauled him away for 42 days in detention without charge. Hinting he'd be booked for spying, the authorities accused him of illegally receiving and misusing funds, planning to bribe officials and tarnishing the reputation of Egypt. This week Ibrahim, 62, wraps up his defense in a six-month trial in the Supreme State Security Court. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years at hard labor, a sentence likely to trigger protests in Egypt and beyond. Frank Wisner, a former U.S. ambassador in Cairo...
...Khaldun, a research center founded by Ibrahim in 1988 and supported by a board that reads like an Egyptian Who's Who. Prosecutors say its projects were illegally funded by foreign sources, and that by alleging election fraud and discrimination against minority Coptic Christians, they undermined Egypt's standing. A press campaign smeared Ibrahim as a crooked traitor with ties to Israel who deserves stoning as punishment...
...coming not long after restrictions were imposed on nongovernmental organizations seeking to develop a "civil society" outside government control. "People are afraid to be forward now," says veteran Egyptian commentator Salama Ahmed Salama. "They do not want the same thing to happen to them." Activists say the message that Egypt tolerates liberals little more than it does Islamic fundamentalists may dim the prospects for democracy elsewhere in the Arab world...
Some wonder whether coziness with powerful people, combined with a jocular streak and a touch of intellectual arrogance, led Ibrahim into trouble, across so-called red lines set by Egypt's security establishment. Before his arrest, he liked to jet around to global conferences and sound off in the Western and Arab press. A friend recalls once recoiling when Mubarak arrived late for a meeting and Ibrahim demanded to know why he had kept them waiting. His first defense lawyer quit after Ibrahim detailed his detention in a public lecture dubbed, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." "He has guts...
Whatever the court's verdict, Ibrahim told TIME last week, he has no regrets about pressing for greater freedom in Egypt. "My only limitation is my conscience and my integrity as a social scientist," he said before giving an undergraduate lecture on revolution. "Democracy is sweeping the world. History is on our side." That's serious talk, reflecting Ibrahim's hope that Egyptians continue moving toward their goal, as best they can. But will they manage to keep their sense of humor along...