RIGHTS-EGYPT: Court Order Comes as Blow to Human Rights

By Cam McGrath Reprint | | Print |

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Jul 30 2002 (IPS) - The conviction of civil rights activist Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim on Monday comes as warning that the government will not tolerate criticism, say rights groups.

Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American professor of sociology, was director of the independent Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies (IKCDS) until it was shut down during a police raid in June 2000. Authorities charged Ibrahim and his colleagues with receiving foreign funds without government consent, embezzlement of funds, and tarnishing the image of Egypt by publishing reports of discrimination against Christian groups.

A Cairo court found Ibrahim and 18 colleagues guilty on all charges. The order affirmed an earlier conviction that had been quashed when an appeals court discovered irregularities in the handling of the case.

The court handed down a seven-year prison term to Ibrahim, and lesser sentences to his colleagues. Most people were expecting either an acquittal or short sentences.

Ibrahim had been convicted by a state security court in May 2001 and given a seven-year jail term. He was released in February this year after serving eight months of the sentence, after the Court of Cassation found irregularities in the trial. The retrial was held in the South Cairo Misdemeanours Court. Any appeal against the order will again be heard by the Court of Cassation.

“The verdict was a big surprise to me, I did not expect at all such a harsh sentence,” Hafez Abu Sa’da, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) told IPS.

The main charge of receiving foreign funds without approval arises from a military decree of 1992 passed to stop funds for Islamic extremists, Sa’da says. Rights groups say the decree is unconstitutional and is often used to silence them.

“This threatens not only Dr Ibrahim, but all human rights work in Egypt,” says Abu Sa’da. About 25 organisations are at risk, he says.

Ibrahim, 63, had planned to use a 250,000 dollar grant from the European Union (EU) to monitor Egypt’s parliamentary elections in 2000 and to raise voter awareness. His lawyers say the government closed IKCDS and its affiliate the Hoda Association, an organisation promoting voting rights for women, to prevent them from carrying out this work. The charges against Ibrahim are politically motivated, they say.

The court also found Ibrahim guilty of defrauding the EU by presenting false documents. But EU officials have repeatedly said that their own audits have uncovered no wrongdoing and that they are satisfied with Ibrahim’s work.

“I was dismayed to learn of these sentences and reiterate that the European Commission has no evidence of the alleged falsification of documents, which seems to have been central to the case for the prosecution,” Chris Patten, the European Commissioner for External Relations said in a statement.

EOHR’s Abu Sa’da is particularly concerned about the charge that Ibrahim disseminated “false information” which defamed Egypt. This is an accusation that can be used against anyone critical of the government’s activities, he says.

“This means they can consider human rights reports as disseminating false information, and this of course affects our work,” he says.

Prosecutors referred to the script of a documentary film that the IKCDS had planned to produce. The film, which was never made, was to suggest that parliamentary elections were regularly rigged. The scriptwriter Ali Salem testified that the film was intended to encourage political participation and that he was solely responsible for its content.

“It was only a script and I am the only responsible person for this script – legally, politically and artistically,” he told the court. Salem was briefly arrested, but never charged.

Ibrahim suffers from a degenerative neurological condition that impairs movement. The court has repeatedly denied requests to let him travel abroad for treatment. His health has declined visibly since the launch of the case two years ago.

“The verdict was very harsh and it did not consider his age or previous medical history,” says Ehab Sallam, director of legal assistance at the Human Rights Centre for Assistance of Prisoners (HRCAP). “It was very obvious to everybody that he is very sick and his medical condition has lasted since the time of his first detention.”

If the court refused requests for medical attention before, it is unlikely to grant them now, says Sallam. “Before he was only a defendant and now he is convicted, so it is impossible for him to be transferred overseas.”

Ibrahim can appeal against the court’s decision, but chances of acquittal look slim, lawyers say. He is due to serve his seven-year jail sentence in El-Tora prison, where he spent the eight months following the verdict in the original trial.

“It might as well be a death sentence,” says a graduate student following the case. “This is how they punish people who criticise the government.”