Human Rights First Calls for Dismissal
of all Charges Against Saad Eddin Ibrahim and his Co-Defendants
Statement of Neil Hicks, Director
of the Human Rights Defender Initiative
Judicial officials in Cairo announced today that the retrial of Saad
Eddin Ibrahim , Director of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development
Studies (ICDS), and 27 co-defendants, employees of ICDS and the associated
organization, the Huda Sharawi Center for Women Voters, would begin
on April 27, 2002 in Cairo. An appeals’ court ordered the retrial,
and Dr. Ibrahim’s release from prison on February 6, 2002.
Dr. Ibrahim’s arrest in June 2000 and his subsequent
prosecution, conviction and imprisonment had a devastating impact
on independent, non-governmental advocacy groups in Egypt. Groups
like the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Egypt’s pre-eminent
human rights monitoring organization, were forced to radically curtail
their activities under threat of suffering the same fate as Dr.
Ibrahim and the ICDS.
In this new trial, Dr. Ibrahim will again face charges
of “spreading false information” on such issues as electoral
fraud and religious persecution, as well as “receiving money
without official permission,” from the European Union.
These charges are transparently designed to obstruct
independent non-governmental organizations from carrying out their
legitimate activities, and from access to support from international
funding institutions. Their impact has been to severely constrain
the activities of local human rights defenders in Egypt. Human Rights First calls on the Egyptian government to withdraw
all charges against Dr. Ibrahim and his co-defendants, and to permit
the ICDS and the Huda Sharawi Center to re-open. Indpendent, non-governmental
organizations in Egypt , including human rights organizations, should
be free to operate without burdensome governmental interference.
For More information contact Neil Hicks (212)
845-5248
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