Word: egyptians
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Ayman Nour was released from prison on Wednesday, but not even his wife knew that he was coming home. Egyptian authorities jailed the opposition leader in 2006 on charges of electoral fraud, but his imprisonment was widely seen as an effort to silence President Hosni Mubarak's most outspoken critic. Nour's wife Gamila Ismail, who organized "Free Ayman Nour" protests, often despaired that her husband, who suffers from diabetes and other ailments, would remain in prison until the end of his five-year sentence in Cairo's notorious Tora prison. And so, when Nour finally arrived at his apartment...
Egypt's attorney general cited "medical reasons" for Nour's release even though Egyptian courts had repeatedly denied Nour's request for a pardon on those grounds. Many see politics behind the decision. Mubarak, 80, wants to improve relations with the new Obama administration, following eight years of cold relations with the Bush administration that were frosty in part due to Nour's imprisonment. "Does Mubarak want to risk another four years of bad relations with the United States? I don't think so," says Hesham Kassem, former deputy leader of Nour's liberal, secular al-Ghad party. "If [Nour...
...Washington. In contrast, Mubarak appears elated by Obama's decision to plunge immediately into Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and gave a warm welcome last month to George Mitchell when the new U.S. special envoy made Cairo the first stop of his first Middle East tour. Last week in Washington, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit, who bitterly sparred with former Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice over Nour, became the first Arab counterpart to meet with Obama's top diplomat, Hillary Clinton...
...from certain that Nour's release heralds an easing of the regime's pressure on opponents and critics. Within the last two weeks, for example, Egyptian state security agents reportedly detained and held without charge for four days an Egyptian-German blogger, Philip Rizk, who had protested what he saw as the regime's inadequate support of Paletinians during the recent Gaza conflict with Israel. Human Rights Watch has denounced Egypt's "appalling domestic rights record," citing alleged "torture in police stations, arbitrary arrests of non-violent dissidents and crippling restrictions on civil society organizations." Rights groups have also criticized...
...Gaza, moderate Middle Eastern governments are coming under increasing pressure from their own people to take a harder line against Israel. Egypt, which supported Israel's Gaza incursion by shutting its border crossing into the Strip, has become so sensitive to criticism of its role that it is jailing Egyptian anti-Israel protesters. Mauritania withdrew its ambassador to Israel. Jordan's King Abdullah summoned and rebuked the Israeli ambassador in the midst of the crisis. And Turkey - a non-Arab but predominantly Muslim state with close ties to Israel - withdrew its sponsorship of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria...