III. INTRODUCTION

On May 21, 2001, Egypt's Supreme State Security Court sentenced Saadeddin Muhammad Ibrahim to seven years of imprisonment on charges of receiving funding without authorization, disseminating false information damaging to Egypt's interests, and securing funds through fraud. The court also sentenced twenty-seven other defendants in the case, two for bribery and forgery, and the others for fraud: twenty-one defendants (nine of whom were tried in absentia) received one-year suspended sentences and six others (one tried in absentia) received sentences ranging between two and five years of imprisonment with labor. The six currently serving custodial sentences are: Saadeddin Ibrahim, Khaled Ahmad Muhammad al-Fayyad, Usama Hashem Muhammad 'Ali and Muhammad Hassanein 'Amara (held at Tora Mazra'at Prison), and Nadia Muhammad `Abd al-Nour and Magda Ibrahim al-Bey (held at the Women's Prison in Qanater).

Lawyers for the prisoners subsequently lodged appeals against the verdict before the Court of Cassation,⁵ and at the time of writing the date for the hearing was set for December 19, 2001. Additionally, the prisoners applied to the court for a temporary suspension of their sentences until their appeal was heard.⁶ The Court of Cassation was due to consider this request at a hearing set for October 17; this was first postponed to October 24 and then cancelled altogether without explanation.

Saadeddin Ibrahim, who holds dual Egyptian/U.S. nationality, is director and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, a Cairo-based research institution he founded in 1988.⁷ He is also a renowned academic and a former chair and professor of the Department of Sociology at the American University of Cairo. Three of his co-defendants were permanent employees of the Ibn Khaldun Center and several others had been hired on fixed-term contracts to assist with various projects being undertaken. Other defendants had been working for an affiliate group, the Association for the Support of Women Voters (Hay'at Da'am al-Nakhibat, known locally as the Hoda Association),⁸ of which Saadeddin Ibrahim is treasurer. At the time of the defendants' arrest in June and July 2000, both these NGOs had been working on projects involving the promotion of voter education among a section of Egypt's electorate, a specific aim being to encourage eligible voters to register and exercise their political rights. The projects were partially funded by the European Union under its MEDA Democracy Programme.⁹ Additionally, the Ibn Khaldun Center was preparing a project to monitor Egypt's upcoming National Assembly (parliamentary) elections, which were scheduled for and subsequently held in October and November 2000.

The arrest and conviction of Saadeddin Ibrahim and his co-defendants, and the closure of the Ibn Khaldun Center and the Hoda Association, come against a backdrop of serious erosion of basic civil rights enshrined in Egypt's Constitution and international human rights law.¹⁰ Although political violence in Egypt, which the government has used to justify the continued use of emergency legislation and the detention without trial of thousands of political suspects, is at its lowest ebb in almost a decade, state control of civil society institutions is at its highest. Throughout the 1990s the Egyptian government has exerted relentless pressure on those choosing to exercise their right to freedom of expression and of association, as well as academic freedom. It has hampered the work of NGOs, professional associations, the media, trade unions and political parties through the promulgation of a series of restrictive laws, effectively weakening civil society and increasing its control over any activities critical of the government. The government has interfered with board elections of Egypt's professional associations, notably the Bar Association; it has curtailed freedom of expression by imprisoning journalists deemed to have defamed its officials. In addition, individuals and activists working in these fields have been targeted for reporting on human rights abuses in the country under the ever-present threat of being charged under vaguely worded statutes with "offenses" that effectively breach their rights to freedom of expression and association. A range of other methods have also been used to stifle writers, academics and intellectuals, including the banning of books or, as in the case of Saadeddin Ibrahim, the leveling of charges such as "dissemination abroad of false information harmful to Egypt's interests."

The conviction of Saadeddin Ibrahim on this particular charge rests in part on statements he made regarding electoral fraud in Egypt. This charge was brought against the backdrop of his preparations for monitoring the 2000 parliamentary elections. Saadeddin Ibrahim had previously served as secretary general of Egypt's nongovernmental Independent Commission for Electoral Review at the time of the 1990 and 1995 parliamentary elections. The Commission's findings demonstrated that both elections had been flawed by widespread irregularities and electoral fraud. This monitoring exercise-in which the Ibn Khaldun Center played a major role-together with a landmark ruling by Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court, led the government to take the positive step of amending the legislation governing the electoral process. In order to try to eliminate fraud, full judicial supervision of all polling stations was imposed for the first time in Egypt (see Section VI below).

Despite these changes, however, the run-up to the 2000 parliamentary elections witnessed serious infringements of the rights to free expression, association and assembly, putting in question the government's stated commitment to fair and free elections and to broad political participation. One manifestation of this, which has become a regular feature of elections in Egypt, was the arrest in the run-up to the elections of opposition candidates and their supporters to prevent them from exercising their political rights. Most of those targeted were individuals affiliated to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, but they also included persons affiliated to the Labor Party, whose activities had been "frozen" by the government in May 2000. This pattern repeated itself ahead of the mid-term Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council-the upper house of the parliament) elections-held from May 16 through June 12, 2001-with the arrest of Muslim Brotherhood candidates running as independents in Alexandria and elsewhere.

⁵ In accordance with Article 34 of Law No. 57 of 1959 Concerning Cases and Procedures for Appeals before the Court of Cassation (as amended), which stipulates that an appeal must be lodged within sixty days of the issuance of the verdict (see also footnote 19).

⁶ In accordance with Article 36 of Law No. 57 of 1959.

⁷ The Ibn Khaldun Center's research and advocacy programs focus on issues of democratization and the role of civil society organizations. It provides consultation and training services to governmental and international organizations in a variety of fields and, until its closure in June 2000, produced a monthly magazine, Civil Society.

⁸ The Hoda Association is named after the renowned Egyptian women's rights activist Hoda Sha'rawi, and provides educational and practical support for women voters.

⁹ The MEDA democracy program is a regional program which supports NGOs in the field of civil and democratic rights, in implementation of the objectives of the Barcelona Declaration signed in November 1995 by all E.U. Member States and the Mediterranean partner states, including Egypt. The Ibn Khaldun project, entitled "Political Education and Electoral Rights," received a grant of 170,000 euros. The Hoda Association project, entitled "Campaign for the registration of Egyptian voters," received a grant of 145,000 euros. Both projects were launched in July 1997 and were designed to be implemented over three years.

¹⁰ Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt of 11 September 1971 (as amended).