WASHINGTON, DC – The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) welcomed today’s decision by the highest appeal court in Egypt to release Dr. Saadeddin Ibrahim from prison where he was spending a seven-year jail term for “tarnishing Egypt’s image.” By doing so, the court overturned Ibrahim’s earlier conviction and ordered him retried for the second time.
Saadeddin Ibrahim is the founder and director of the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, an internationally renowned non-governmental organization focusing on political and economic reform in Egypt. Dr. Ibrahim was arrested in July 2000, along with several colleagues at the Center, and subsequently charged with misusing grants from the European Community and “intentionally propagated false statements and biased rumors concerning some internal affairs that could weaken the standing of the state.”
ADC President Ziad Asali stated, “As an Arab-American civil rights organization, we are delighted that Saadeddin Ibrahim, a fellow American citizen, is free and able to join his family. ADC has raised this issue with Egyptian officials on numerous occasions since July 2000. Again, we appeal to the Egyptian government to drop all charges against Dr. Ibrahim. We at ADC firmly believe that the formidable challenges faced by the Arab World today cannot be effectively overcome in the absence of freedom of speech and the rule of law.”