Democracy is on the march - away from Egypt. Perhaps that is an inaccurate statement considering democracy really was never marching in Egypt in the first place, but the jailing of President Hosni Mubarak's strongest challenger (he came in second in the recent election with a whopping 7% of the vote) on totally bogus charges does nothing to improve Egypt's status as a roadblock on the path to freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
The New York Times account of Ayman Nour's court sentencing hearing is fascinating if only because it is so absurd. Even the judge seemed ashamed of the verdict he was serving up.
With diplomats from the United States, France, Norway and the European Union seated in a courtroom otherwise packed with uniformed police and state security men, a judge read out the verdict and sentence in a nearly inaudible whisper. Mr. Nour, 41, locked in a foul-smelling, filthy cage in the courtroom, began to chant, "Down with Mubarak."
Mr. Nour was convicted of having forged signatures on the petitions used in 2004 to create his own political party - charges that political analysts, diplomats, academics and writers said appeared to be little more than a fig leaf for political persecution, especially after one of the prosecution's main witnesses said he testified only after state security forces threatened his nieces.
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Inside, the courtroom was so packed with plainclothes security men that it was impossible for Mr. Nour's supporters and members of his party - El Ghad, or Tomorrow Party - to enter. Uniformed police officers made a wall in front of the bars, so that he could barely be seen.
One officer said the men in court were "relatives" of other defendants in the case, but the men kept saluting each other and one seated in the front row acknowledged that they were state security officers.
"What is happening to our country," shouted Mr. Nour's lawyer, Mr. Salem, as the police shoved their way into the courtroom. "What's all this security? What kind of law is this?"
I'm curious as to why Mubarak feels he can get away with such blatant political oppression. Perhaps, though, this is nothing new. Egypt has never seen real political freedom. Indeed it is only in comparison to Mubarak's pronounced movement towards greater political freedom - and the lack of that reality - that makes this stand out as especially flagrant.
"We speak about the rule of law but we don't believe in the rule of law," said Yehia el-Gamal, a law professor at Cairo University and former minister and member of Parliament who said the decision to prosecute Mr. Nour was clearly political. "We are living in the state which is personified by the president. The president is the law. The president is the ruler."
Others said Mr. Nour was the latest in a line of people, including Mr. Ibrahim and Essam el-Erian of the Muslim Brotherhood, to be crushed by the weight of the state for having crossed some arbitrary red line.
Crushed by the weight of the state, indeed.
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