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The good news is, he's out there. The bad news is, it may be decades before hešs let free. A brief survey of liberty in the Muslim world. Articles by Asla Aydintasbas, Guy Bechor, Uriya Shavit and Amir Taheri
ASLA AYDINTASBAS: Where is the Middle East's Sakharov
Soon after the war in Iraq, I was in Europe attending a conference on Iraq alongside an odd mix of Arab journalists, Eastern Europeans, and American officials on their way to or back from Baghdad.
AMIR TAHERI: Iran alone has 30,000 political prisoners
Anyone looking for a Muslim Nelson Mandela is bound to be disappointed. Muslim tyrannies do not allow a serious opponent to live long enough, even in prison, to acquire the iconic status that the former ANC leader won in South Africa.
URIYA SHAVIT: Well-known red lines
A few months ago, Ahmad Chalabi was appointed acting head of Iraq's temporary ruling council after years as chairman of the Iraqi National Congress, the chief opposition group to Saddam Hussein's regime, which was supported by the US.
GUY BECHOR: The real dissident is the Jewish state
Where is the Nelson Mandela of the Arab world? Why is there is not one famous dissident among 20-odd autocratic Arab states, no symbol or role model inspiring widespread emulation, as were Andre Sakharov and Ida Nudel in the USSR, despite thousands of political prisoners rotting in regional jails?
SA'AD AL-DIN IBRAHIM: Who are the freedom fighters?
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."
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