Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Saad Eddin Ibrahim Has Been Freed From

Juan Cole 12/04/2002

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Saad Eddin Ibrahim has been freed from prison by an Egyptian appeals court, which nullified his earlier sentence of seven years of hard labor. But, it ordered a retrial rather than simply freeing him. (He was out for `Id al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan). A human rights activist, Saad has been an inspiration to us all. President Bush had complained about his treatment in a letter to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which is something of a milestone in the evolution of US-Egyptian relations. The reaction of prickly Egyptian parliamentarians was that they would not accept foreign meddling. One thing they did not seem to grasp was the in a globalizing world we are all open to influences from abroad. The European Union puts pressure in various ways on the US to abolish the death penalty, e.g. The other is that a gross injustice had been done, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been violated. As a member of the UN, Egypt is signatory to covenants enshrining freedom of speech, and so was in violation of its own law. Why should other UN members not say so?

The thing that worries me is the prospect of another trial. Saad’s health is not good, and he may not be able to take it. I think the notion of a retrial is a broad hint to him to leave Egypt and go abroad, but so far he has been too stubborn and principled to take such hints. For all we know he will be convicted again in the new trial. It reminds me of the ending of the Bonfire of the Vanities, where the protagonist had become a perpetual defendant even though he had never been shown to have committed an actionable crime. On the other hand, his poor health may be a cause for the courts not to go forward with the retrial. Let us hope they have this sense and decency.

The defense demonstrated that the Ibn Khaldun Center had not illegally received donations from abroad, since the funding from the European Union had been awarded as a sort of contract, and had not consisted of donations in the legal sense at all. Likewise they demonstrated that the military court had misconstrued the law forbidding the besmirching of Egypt’s honor. (This is a ridiculous law to have on the books in any case. A country, the honor of which is so fragile that it needs such a law has already lost its reputation; and jailing its foremost thinkers is calculated to strip it of any honor it has left.)

Congratulations to Saad for this great victory, and let us all hope Egypt has taken a step toward becoming a more humane and democratic society.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Top Things You Still Think You Know About Iran that are Not True
  • Why Trump Bombed Iran: Preserving US and Israeli Nuclear Supremacy in the Middle East
  • Iran's Grand Strategy - Vali Nasr
  • Colonial Logic, not Jewish Wisdom Guides Israel's Wars
  • Air Campaigns don't Win Wars on their Own: Why Israel will largely Fail in Iran

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved