By Mohammad Baali
Albawaba.com – Egypt
Five human rights organizations in Egypt were Wednesday evening drafting a joint statement protesting a court ruling convicting democracy and human rights activist, Saad Eddine Ibrahim.
The court handed down a seven-year jail sentence on Ibrahim after he was found guilty of defaming Egypt, and accepting $250,000 in funding for his institute from the European Union. Seven of his aides received different jail sentences in the case.
The secretary general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Hafez Abu Saada, told Albawaba.com that his institution, in addition to four others, agreed to take the action against the verdict, which he said was harming to Egypt’s image in the world.
The other four human right watchdogs are: Hisham Mubarak Center for Law, Human Rights Center for Convicts’ Rights, Cairo Human Rights Center and Nadeem Center.
Abu Saada said they were talking to the Egyptian Center for Judiciary Independence about the latter’s participation.
Commenting on the verdict, the director said that the charge regarding the spread of rumors was not clear. “Even if there was inaccurate information in the reports [issued by Ibrahim’s Ibn Khaldoun research center], should the answer to that be imprisonment or correcting the false information?” he said.
According to the activist, the court ruling is a very serious development since it was the first time a 1992 martial decree banning NGOs from receiving foreign money had been implemented.
Egypt’s human rights organizations depend primarily on foreign financial assistance, particularly from North American and West European countries.
Abu Saada feared that the case, in addition to similar freedom-related issues such as that of Nassr Abu Zeid and Nawal Saadawi, who have convicted of defaming Islam, would be used by the Western media “to cover for the Israeli crimes,” especially when linked to other issues of human rights in the Arab World.
The Western media will use human rights abuses in the Arab World to polish the stereotype that Israel is a democracy oasis in the Middle East.
The statement is expected to be issued Thursday – Albawaba.com
