A Discourse on Trial: The Promotion of Human Rights and the Prosecution of Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim in Egypt

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge with gratitude the support of this research by the Minerva Center for Human Rights and the Davis Center for International Relations.

Notes

Paul Gordon Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998, p. 290.

See among others Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994; Richard A Falk, Human Rights Horizons. New York: Routledge, 2000, part 3; Mara Loveman, “High-Risk Collective Action: Defending Human Rights in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.” American Journal of Sociology, 104, 2 (1998): 477–525.

Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations. New York: Norton, 2000; Alexandra Barahona de Brito et al. (eds.). The Politics of Memory. Oxford University Press, 2001; Nigel Biggar (ed.). Burying the Past. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2001.

This tension relates to the problematique of relativism, which we refrain from addressing it directly here for reasons of space. The issues and debate can be followed among others in Alison Dundes Renteln, “Relativism and the Search for Human Rights.” American Anthropologist, 90, 1 (1988): 56–72; Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, “Problems and Prospects of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights,” in An-Na'im and Francis Mading Deng (eds.). Human Rights in Africa. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1990, pp. 331–367; idem, eds. Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992; Michael J. Perry, “Are Human Rights Universal? The Relativist Challenge and Related Matters.” Human Rights Quarterly, 19 (1997): 461–509. On its connection to globalization issues see also Brian Turner, “The Problem of Cultural Relativism for the Sociology of Human Rights: Weber, Schmitt and Strauss.” Journal of Human Rights, 4, 1 (2002): 587–605; and Michael Goodhart, “Origins and Universality in the HR Debates: Cultural Essentialism and the Challenge of Globalization.” Human Rights Quarterly, 25 (2003): 935–964.

Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.). The Power of Human Rights. International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Prominent examples are the campaign to eliminate the so-called crimes of honor in Jordan and the campaign against female genital mutilation in Egypt.

Albeit with much less autonomous mobilization stemming from civil society than in South America.

Ian Guest, Behind the Disappearances. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990; Luis Roniger and Mario Sznajder, The Legacy of Human rights Violations in the Southern Cone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

The Ibn Khaldun Center (IKC) is an independent research institute whose major goals are the advancement of social studies in the Arab world and in developing countries. The center has run important research projects and has organized conferences on issues concerning democratic reform and the strengthening of civil society, with an emphasis on women's rights and on unveiling the relations between Moslems and Coptic Christians in Egypt.

al-Hayat, 3 July 2000.

Cairo Times, 28 September–4 October 2000.

“The state of Egypt vs. free expression: The Ibn Khaldun trial.” Human Rights Watch, 14, 1 (January 2000): 9–10; Lars Berger, “The case of Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim and current relationship between state and civil society in Egypt.” Orient, 41, 4 (December 2000): 667–668.

Cairo Times, 31 May–6 June 2001.

14. For example, the law announced after the 1992 earthquake aimed at limiting the ability of different organizations to receive foreign funds was never approved by the upper house of Parliament.

al-Ahram Weekly, 7–13th February 2002.

See an English translation of the verdict on http://www.democracy-egypt/acquittal/reasonofacquittal.Jugedment.doc. There is a seeming connection between the timing of the case and the beginning of US military activities in Iraq, even if different bodies in Egypt, among them, Ibrahim's family, denied this possibility and emphasized the independence of the judicial system.

See testimonies of prominent public figures at the trial, in which they turned to Ibrahim's defense, utterly confirming his academic and moral integrity, among them Dr. Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Majd; Dr. ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Sa‘id; Dr. Mohamad al-Juhari, and Dr. Sa‘id al-Najar, al-Hayat, 21 January 2001.

Some of Ibrahim's early studies on the subject were published in English. See Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt Militant Groups: Methodological Notes and Preliminary Findings”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 12 (1980): 343–364; idem, “An Islamic Alternative in Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood and Sadat”, Arab Studies Quarterly, 4 (1981): 75–93. See also the volume of his collected writings: Egypt Islam and Democracy: Critical Essays. Cairo and New-York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002 (c.1996).

Mona El-Ghobashy, “Antimonies of the Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim case,” Merip press information, note 106, 15 August 2002.

See the joint statement by seven international human rights organizations, among them Amnesty International, human rights Watch, and the international Anti-Torture Federation, Concerns about ongoing of detention of human rights defenders (London, 14 July 2000) (AI Index: MDE 23 December 2000).

On the policies of Nasser and Sadat, see among others Raymond Baker, Egypt's Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978; Raymond Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-populist Development of an Authoritarian Modernizing State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics and Civil Society, Boulder: Westview, 1994; and idem, Egypt during the Sadat Years. New York: Palgrave, 2000.

Hassan Bahey Eddin, “The prisoner as message.” al-Ahram Weekly, 5–11 September 2002.

Ibrahim attributed the arrest to his intention to supervise the elections (see http://www.arabicnews.com, 26 September 2000). Mahmud Khandil, a human rights activist, claimed too that the government did not want the human rights movement taking any part in the supervision of the elections, al-Ahram al-‘Arabi, 8 July 2000. See also Mona El-Ghobashy, “Antinomies of the Saad Eddin Ibrahim case,” Merip press information, note 106, 15 August 2002.

The script was published in al-Hayat. (London). 5 July 2000.

al-Hayat, 3 July 2000.

In recent years the IKC sponsored a series of conferences on ethnic and religious minorities in the Arab world that have drawn a great deal of criticism from intellectuals and government; see Cairo Times, 1 July 2000; also al-Ahram weekly, 7–13 February 2002. For Ibrahim's own analysis, see Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, The Copts in Egypt. London: Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, 1996.

The statement by the editor in chief of al-Musawar, Makram Muhamad Ahmad, which is illustrative, can be found in al-Musawar, 30 May 2001.

For the status of the Coptic community within Egypt and the rhetoric of national unity see Paul Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Cristian communities in Modern Egypt Politics.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 10, 2 (1999): 219–235; David Zeidan, “The Cops—Equal, Protected or persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 10, 1 (1999): 53–67; A. Ayalon, “Egypt's Coptic Pandora's Box.” In O. Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor (eds.). Minorities and the State in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999), pp. 53–71.

Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, “‘Ala al-’umah an tudif mustalh ‘jamlukiyya’ ‘ala qamusha al-siyasi.” al-Majala, 2–8 July 2000.

Mona El-Ghobashy, “Antinomies of the Saad Eddin Ibrahim case.” Merip press information note 106, 15 August 2002. This issue has continued to resonate politically in Egypt to 2005.

Illustrations could be found in the Egyptian State information service website, “Wherases of sentencing Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim,” 26 August 2002. http://www.sis.gov.eg/online/html/aug.htm

See interview with President Hosni Mubarak in Newsweek, March 31, 2001.

E.g. the article by Dr. ‘Abd al-‘Azim Ramadan in al-Jamhuria, June 2, 2001. The editor in chief of al-Musawar stated this was not an issue of freedom of conscience but an issue of an academic integrity, freedom of research in Egypt, and the relation between local research centers and political organizations, al-Musawar, 30 May 2001.

al-Musawar, 1 June 2001.

This information appeared first in al-'Akhbar on 27 May 2001; al-Musawar, 30 May 2001; al-Jamhuria, 2 June 2001. Even though it was revealed false, it was repeated in al-‘Usbu’on 14 January 2002, where it was said that Sharon had shown more involvement in this case than in the case of Azam Azam, a Druze Israeli citizen imprisoned in Egypt for alleged spying. The Israeli embassy published a formal refutation, reported in al-ahram Weekly on 31 May 2001.

al-‘Usbu‘, 14 January 2002.

al-‘Akhbar, 8 July 2000.

The verdict in Arabic is brought in http://www.egypt-democracy.org/saadweb/alhokm/alhokmcomp.pdf According to Ibrahim's family, the funds received from Haifa University in Israel were a payment for a subscription to the journal Civil Society published by the Ibn Khaldun Center, whereas the money from al-Jazeera was a payment for his participation in a television show. See Cairo Times, 5–11 September 2002.

al-'Ahrar, 9 July 2000; al-Musawar, 30 May 2001.

See for example the joint press release by six Egyptian human rights organizations, namely the Cairo Institute for human rights, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, The Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners, The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the Arab Center for the Independence of Judiciary, and al-Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence—Al-hakm bilsijn liSa‘ad al-Din Ibrahim wazamalat ta‘adid limuasasat al-mujtama’ al-madani fi al-misr, 24 May 2001, to be found in the following site: http://www.hrcap.org/ar_press/ar_press.htm

See the joint declaration by seven international human rights organizations from 14 July 2000. Concerns about ongoing of detention of human rights defenders (London, 14 July 2000) (AI Index: MDE 23 December 2000).

For a detailed discussion over the human rights movement's campaign against the law and the reasons for its failure see Vickie Langohr, “Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: Egypt and Liberalizing Arab Regimes.” Comparative Politics, 36, 2 (2004): 193–200. Decree 153 was later on debarred for constitutional reasons, and a new more balanced law was passed in April 2002, which was welcome by all sides involved. See Bassem Hafez, “Egypt NGO's: coming into their own.” Human Rights Defenders, 15–21 March 2004, p. 7.

One of the most prominent organizations in Egypt, the Human Rights Center of Legal Aid, split into two organizations following an internal argument regarding the required registration under Decree 153. Bassem Hafez, “Egypt NGOs.” op. cit.

The CEO of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, Hafez Abu Sa‘ada, was arrested on 1998 and was charged of receiving unauthorized foreign funds and yet no indictment was submitted. Abu Sa‘ada considered that, unlike his own arrest, Ibrahim's arrest was due to a long-term plan to undermine civil society associations. Cairo Times, 27 July–9 August 2000.

See the joint declaration by the six Egyptian human rights organizations. (See note 38 above).

As quoted from al Ahram Weekly, 31 May–6 June 2001.

The trial did not take place in a military court but at the Supreme Court of Defense, whose decisions can be appealed. Some see this as an indication that the Egyptian government had a vested interest in having a public trial that anybody, including the Western media could follow directly, as a sign of openness and transparency. See the statement by one of Egypt's leading intellectuals, Mohamad Sid Ahmad, in al-Ahram Weekly, 5–11 October 2000.

See reports on their presence in al-Ahram Weekly, 2–8 May 2002.

Cairo Times, 28 September–4 October 2000.

See for example the claims of Hassan Bahey Eddin, a prominent human rights activist who said that Ibrahim's status as one of the most renowned sociologists in the Arab world should not be ignored just because he holds different opinions on political and human rights issues: al-Ahram Weekly, 5–11 September 2002.

http://www.arabicnews.com 6 February 2001. See also the discussion over the commission's visit and the reaction of Egyptian huamn rights movements in Vickie Langohr, “Frosty reception for US religious freedom commission in Egypt.” Middle East Report Online, 29 March 2001 (http://www.merip.org/mero/mero032901.html); and Omayma Abdel Latif, “A Case of Double Standarts.” al-Ahram Weekly, 23–30 May 2001.

On the impact of the nationalist origin of some of the movement's leaders on their perception of minority rights see Mustapha K. al-Sayyid, “Theoretical Issues in the Arab Human Rights Movement.” Arab Studies Quarterly, 19,1 (winter 1997), p. 29.

They claimed that the allegations were based on Military Decree No. 4 from 1992 that is based on the authority given to the military governor under emergency law no. 162 dating back to 1958 (note 38), and see also the contents of the press release by the Egyptian human rights organization dated 29 July 2002 referring to the legal aspects in the base of the case.

al-Musawar, 1 June 2001, pp. 18–21.

al-Hayat, 14 July 2000.

See the words of Dr. Sa‘id Sadeq in al-Akhrar, 30 September 2001; see the calling of liberal Arab intellectuals for the release of Ibrahim published in al-Kuds al-‘Arabi, 30 September 2002. Most of them were not Egyptians, but among them were some who operated in Egypt such as Dr. Jamal Abd al-Jawad, a researcher at the al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, playwright ‘Ali Salem, author Muhammad al-Badri and more. See also the article by Edward Sa‘id in al-Hayat, 28 June 2001.

The debate focused on the funding of human rights organizations, which contrasted with the absence of any debate over the funding of organizations dealing with development, the environment, and the status of women. See Berger, “The case of Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim.” p. 672.

al-‘Usbu’, 14 January 2002.

al-‘Usbu’, 10 November 2003; al-‘Arabi, 16 November 2003. It must be mentioned that in an interview with al-Ahram, Ibrahim claimed he had not received any of these funds. This claim was later confirmed by a government official in al-Ahram Weekly, 27 November 2003. In September 2004 Saad Eddin Ibrahim was of the opinion that “all the major changes that came to Egypt and the Arab world came externally because internal powers blocked change…. But you cannot have change by external factors alone. It is sometimes necessary, yes, but never sufficient” (http://www.egypttoday.com, January 2006, vol. 27, 1).

See the words of Hisham Kasem, human rights activist and the editor of the Cairo Times in al-Ahram Weekly, 12 December 2002.

Abu Sa‘ada claimed that the government's plan proved itself effective, as nongovernmental and human rights organizations became to fear any foreign aid. Even if aware of this dynamic, his own organization was facing bankruptcy. Cairo Times, 27 July–9 August 2000.

See discussion over the public campaign against the associations and civil institutions law in Langohr, “Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics” (note 40 above).

See the publications by international human rights groups quoted above. The international media related to the case in many occasions. See for example: “Egypt's Affront to Democracy.” Washington Post, 23 May 2001; Mary Anne Weaver, “Mubarak regime is now on trial in Egypt.” New York Times, 17 June 2001; Thomas L. Freidman, “Tarnished pyramids.” New York Times, 25 May 2001. This article raised a stormy reaction in the Egyptian media, see e.g., al-‘Usbu’, 30 May 2001 and Sawt al-‘Umma 30 May 2001. The international media did, of course, criticize America's policy as well (e.g., Thomas L. Freidman, “Bush's shame”, New York Times, 4 August 2002).

The State department reacted to the verdict with expressions of disappointment: Federal News Service, State department briefing: Phil Reeker Department deputy spokesman, 29 July 2002; See also the reaction of the European Union: European Commission's press release of 13 December 2000. IP/00/1495. The varied constellation of forces shaping US policies on human rights as part of foreign policy is beyond the scope of this analysis. See for instance David Forsythe, “US Foreign Policy and Human Rights.” Journal of Human Rights, 1, 4 (2002): 501–521.

This is related to Egypt's reliance on the Nile's water.

The press claimed that the outcry raised in the world on behalf of Ibrahim was far from being naïve or credible and that there were elements, mainly Zionist-Israeli oriented ones, that operated against Egypt and her role in the Arab world, that saw this case as a chance to slander it. See for example the words by the editor of al-‘Akhbar Jallal Duyder, al-‘Akhbar, 29 May 2001; al-Musawar, 30 May 2001; See also al-Wasat (London), 20 August 2000, where the American criticism was tied to the failure of the Camp David talks and the US disappointment over Egypt's refusal to pressure Arafat into returning to the negotiations.

http://www.arabicnews.com, 31 May 2001.

Letter by spokesperson Majdi Shakar to the editor of The New York Times, 10 August 2002.

See for example the words of Dr. Abd Al-‘Aziz Ramadan, al-Jamhuriyya, 2 June 2001.

al-Ahram Weekly, 9-15 May 2002.

Washington Post, 15 August 2002.

al-‘Akhbar, 18 August 2002.

al-Wafd, 17 August 2002.

See quotation of their leaders in Akhar Sa‘a, 21 August 2002.

‘Isam al-‘Aryan, quoted in al-Ahram Weekly, 22-28 August 2002. Similar opinions were expressed by the journalist Fahmi Huwaydi al-Sharq al-‘Awsat, 18 August 2002.

Bahey Eddin's statements in al-Ahram Weekly, 5–11 September 2002. See also the conference organized by the Cairo Institute for human rights that dealt with human rights, the American aid, and issue of Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, Sawasiyya, no. 45–46 (2002).

As quoted in al-Ahram Weekly, 22–28 September 2002. See also Akhar Sa‘a, 21 August 2002.

al-Ahram Weekly, 22–28 September 2002.

See the connection he made to the Egyptian political culture in al-Hayat, 29 July 2001.

See the interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim in the Washington Post, 17 May 2003.

There are few analyses tracing the mutual hostility and suspicion of both groups. See, e.g., Neil Hicks, “Does Islamist Human Rights Activism Offer a Remedy to the Crisis of HR Implementation in the Middle East,” Human Rights Quarterly, 24 (2002): 361–381.