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SA’AD AL-DIN IBRAHIM:
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Who are the freedom fighters?

SA’AD AL-DIN IBRAHIM
NATIONALITY: EGYPTIAN
(Holds American citizenship)

A prominent Egyptian sociology professor at the American University in Cairo and head of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development, Sa’ad al-Din Ibrahim was arrested by Egyptian authorities in July 2000 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for "establishing contacts with foreign states and providing them with information detrimental to the economic, social, and political interests of Egypt; receiving funds illegally; operating as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) without a license; trying to provoke religious strife between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt and acting to undermine the regime and the stability of the state and threaten its social harmony."

In addition, Ibrahim was accused of having "deceived international institutions in order to unjustly receive funds, in return for damaging Egypt’s good reputation."

In fact, Ibrahim’s real crime seems to have been that he denounced as fraudulent the 1995 Egyptian elections — charges, incidentally, that were later proven true.

Unlike with many other Arab dissidents, Ibrahim’s case received widespread international attention when the American administration announced that it would not increase aid to Egypt due to Ibrahim’s imprisonment. Ibrahim was released from prison in February 2002 along with five of his colleagues from the Ibn Khaldun Center.

ALI SALEM NATIONALITY: EGYPTIAN Once one of Egypt’s most prominent playwrights and satirists, Ali Salem became a cultural pariah after visiting Israel following the signing of the Oslo Accords. His outspoken support for the peace process got him expelled from the Writers Syndicate for his "normalization activities with the Zionist entity.‘ Ironically, Journey to Israel, the book about his travels that led to his social ostracism, became a best-seller in Egypt, indicating that many Egyptians were curious about the country with which they had had a ’cold peace" for well over a decade.

Salem’s notoriety was further enhanced when he cooperated with political rights activist Sa’ad al-Din Ibrahim — the professor imprisoned for his outspoken views against officialdom — by writing a satirical script encouraging Egyptians to vote. The script describes a husband and wife who come to the conclusion that the elections in Egypt are rigged because the public allows them to be.

In the script that was published in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, the wife says: "The people in the street determine the government that rules them… Participate in the elections and elect a person you believe in, be it a Muslim or a Christian, a man or a woman… and then demand accountability."

Though, unlike Ibrahim, Salem was never jailed, he was interrogated for several hours by Egyptian authorities, and eventually accused by the regime of "damaging Egypt’s good reputation."

HASHEM AGHAJARI NATIONALITY: IRANIAN A University of Hamedan history lecturer, journalist, and active member of the reformist Islamic Revolution’s Mujahideen Organization, Hashem Aghajari aroused the ire of the Iranian government when he gave a speech calling for reform within the Islamic clerical establishment.

"In our culture we need Islamic humanism,‘ he said. ’Every human being is worth something; none can be trampled. This principle is stated in our constitution. But, unfortunately, in the past decade, it has penetrated the minds of the people in the Islamic Republic that it needn’t be so. This was their excuse for torture. They [the ruling clergy] say: ’We arrested someone, he has some information, he is a member of some group, he has been active in something. Under ordinary interrogation he isn’t confessing, so we must torture him so he sings like a canary.’ This is exactly what the constitution condemns — but the rulers do not observe it."

Statements such as this prompted the claim that he was attacking Islam and its Prophet, a crime for which he was sentenced to death in November 2002.

The verdict caused an international outcry on the imprisoned Aghajari’s behalf, which may be the reason his death sentence has not yet been carried out.

JAMAL KHASHOGGI NATIONALITY: SAUDI Only a few weeks after becoming the third editor-in-chief of the liberal Saudi daily Al-Watan, Jamal Khashoggi was fired by the Saudi Information Ministry on May 27 this year.

The newspaper’s pluralistic opinion pages — featuring articles criticizing the Saudi government’s "religious police," as well as defending women’s rights (such as the right to drive cars) — frequently angered the country’s Islamists, resulting in a large turnover of editors since the paper’s establishment three years ago.

The final nail in Khashoggi’s proverbial coffin was an op-ed by Khaled Al-Ghanami he published a week after the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, attacking the bloodthirsty nature of Wahhabism — Saudi Arabia’s official stream of Islam.

He is currently acting as media adviser to the Saudi Arabian ambassador to London, Prince Turki Al-Faisal.

LAFIF LAKHDAR NATIONALITY: TUNISIAN A leading figure in the drive for modernization and secularization in the Arab world, Tunisian journalist Lafif Lakhdhar was fired from the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat by its Saudi owner, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, following an appearance on al-Jazeera TV in October 2002. This was after he had been suspended in the past for liberal views he expressed regularly in his weekly column.

The statements he made in the broadcast that led to his dismissal included harsh critiques of the Arab world in general, and calls for shedding "barbaric" practices that include oppression of women and torture for minor offenses, in particular.

Lakhdar is currently living in Paris, where he continues to voice stringent opposition to what he sees as backward Arab practices, and to express support for Western ideals.

"…All the peoples of the world are moving forward along the course of history towards globalization, a society of knowledge, and political modernization — all but you, who race in the opposite direction," he wrote in May, on the liberal Web site, Elaph.

OMAR IBRAHIM KARSOU NATIONALITY: PALESTINIAN A banker from Nablus who lived in Ramallah until relocating to New York a couple of years ago, Omar Karsou founded an organization called Democracy in Palestine, to ignite a grassroots challenge to Yasser Arafat and introduce reform in the Palestinian Authority. To this end, Karsou — who embraced US President George W. Bush’s "axis of evil" speech — met with senior officials in Washington to discuss alternative leadership.

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed Karsou published in The Daily Telegraph in July 2002:

"…Middle Easterners love to dwell on the past — it is part of our ’victimhood game’: it seems always to be somebody else’s fault. But to forge ahead, we need to go beyond the past. If we are to hope for a better future for the next generation, we need accountability and new strategies. We have to place power into the hands of the true representatives of the majority, while giving the minority an equal platform.

"It is only through a democratic system that we can ensure a lasting peace and prolonged prosperity. This is the only way that we can be sure that a meritocracy distinguishes one Palestinian from another. It is only then that we can be sure our elected leaders have the people’s interests at heart; otherwise they know they will be voted out.

"Suddenly, there is a good deal of talk about reform and elections in Palestine. That is all very well. But democracy is not just a simple practice of electing a leader. After all, the Soviet Union held elections regularly, and Cubans go to the polls every five years. Before elections are held in Palestine, we must ensure that all other elements of a free society are in place: freedom of the press; freedom to hold political rallies; equal time on state-run media.

"More important, we must change our electoral system. The present one was adopted to produce a strong man in power — a dictatorial government was the inevitable result. To fall for the same trap would be a national disaster."

Compiled by Ruthie Blum with the assistance of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).