Maverick MP detained
Prominent opposition MP Ayman Nour's arrest does not bode well for prospects of political reform, say political activists
Commentators said Egypt's political reform process was dealt a deafening -- and defining -- blow this week with the arrest, on Saturday, of Ayman Nour, a two-term member of parliament and head of brand new political party Al-Ghad (Tomorrow), reports Gamal Essam El-Din.
Nour, 41, has been a consistent advocate of constitutional reform, calling for curtailing the president's powers, a direct and multi-candidate poll, and a limit of two terms in office. His Al- Ghad Party sports a liberal platform advocating a free market economy, respect for the rule of law, good governance, women's empowerment, freedom of expression, secularism, an open relationship with the West and the United States, and a vibrant multi-party system.
Nour is facing charges that he was involved in forging documents, with the objective of pressuring the Political Parties Committee -- the government watchdog authorised to legalise parties -- into granting his party an official licence, which it did late last year.
A spokesman for the US State Department said on Monday that the arrest of Nour -- "one of Egypt's most prominent opposition leaders" -- raises questions about the outlook for Egypt's democratic process. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said the timing of the arrest, at "the beginning of an election year in Egypt... on the eve of a long-planned national dialogue between opposition parties, including Nour's and the ruling National Democratic Party, [was] incongruous."
Boucher also said US officials were concerned about reports that the young legislator has been harshly treated during his detention.
Nour was arrested just three hours after the People's Assembly decided, on Saturday morning, that he be stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Several police officers were waiting to arrest Nour as he left the People's Assembly building. On Sunday Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed ordered that Nour and his office manager, lawyer Ayman Barakat, be remanded into custody for four days pending investigation of the charges against him. On Monday, a downtown court ordered that Nour's detention be extended for as long as 45 days.
Nour only found out about the Saturday morning People's Assembly Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee meeting meant to strip him of his immunity just half an hour before it began. By the time he got to parliament, the meeting was over, with most of the committee's members, mostly belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), having rallied behind the motion to strip him of his parliamentary immunity.
According to the committee's report -- the printed copy of which looked like it had been prepared in advance of the meeting itself -- Justice Minister Mahmoud Abul-Leil's request that Nour's immunity be lifted so that he could be interrogated on forgery charges was forwarded to the legislative committee by parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour in the early hours of Saturday morning (1pm).
The committee's report clearly shows that Nour was being secretly investigated for some time. The Interior Ministry-affiliated Anti-Forgery Department (AFD) said, "an investigation into the political practices of MP Ayman Nour showed that, in an attempt to gain a legal licence for his party, Nour had fabricated and forged the signatures of as many as 1187 citizens. Nour forged these signatures," the report said, "to provide the Political Parties Committee with what it needed to legalise his party." The report claimed that of the 1201 signatures from Maadi, for instance, 1187 were forged.
Having rammed the matter through the legislative committee, Nour's case was in the assembly's plenary session just an hour later. There, the debates seemed to have been orchestrated to prevent opposition MPs from rallying behind Nour. Opposition MPs like leftist Tagammu Party leader Khaled Mohieddin and Nasserist Heider Boghdadi asked that Nour be allowed to testify before the general prosecution, rather than face full questioning. Others, like Munir Fakhri Abdel-Nour from Nour's former party, Al-Wafd, said Nour's immunity should be stripped so that he could defend himself, and plead not guilty.
Security forces also raided Nour's Zamalek residence and his party's downtown Bab Al-Sheariya headquarters, seizing thousands of documents and papers pertaining to the formation of Al-Ghad Party.
Political activists were worried that Nour's arrest was just the start of a wide-scale government crackdown aimed at striking fear into the growing number of people campaigning for radical constitutional reforms. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly by phone, Nour said the case against him was "orchestrated by both security forces and parliament at the same time to terrorise me and intimidate all those trying to amend the constitution."
Over the last few weeks, Nour appeared to be stepping up a campaign of criticism against the government. A couple of straws may have broken the camel's back. Just two days before his arrest, Nour met former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who was in Egypt at the head of a US congressional taskforce looking at ways of responding to calls for reform in the Arab world. Albright singled out Nour and members of the Ibn Khaldoun Development Centre headed by sociologist and controversial pro-democracy advocate Saadeddin Ibrahim for the group's meetings.
Nour was also one of two opposition leaders US ambassador to Egypt David Welch met last month, an incident that triggered sharp criticism from NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif. Welch later met El-Sherif to discuss the issue.
Two weeks ago, President Hosni Mubarak accused unspecified foreign of allocating $70 million in funding for local pro-democracy advocates.
Nour's arrest came just two days before Monday's national dialogue began.
Nour had sent El-Sherif a letter demanding that the dialogue with opposition parties be aired live on television, and that constitutional reform be an agenda priority. "These are the two main reasons why they turned against me," Nour told the Weekly. Describing what happened as "the most infamous fabricated case in Egypt's modern political life," Nour wondered why so many government apparatuses were so suddenly mobilised against him.
Mona Makram Ebeid, secretary- general of Nour's Al-Ghad Party, told the Weekly that, "the arrest deals a deafening blow to efforts aimed at political and economic reforms. It is not good for Egypt's image in the world and bodes ill for all those trying honestly to turn the country into a real democracy."
Ebeid, who represented Al-Ghad at the dialogue conference in Nour's stead, said the party was not aiming for a confrontation with the government. "Al- Ghad," Ebeid said, "is not interested in confronting the government because the cost of political reform and dissent is too high."
At the same time, Ebeid said, the NDP needed to understand that rejecting constitutional reform and detaining pro- democracy advocates may be an easy short-term option, but "in the long run, it will prove disastrous because it will make things difficult and worse, with sky-high costs for the regime."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/728/eg2.htm