August 4th, 2008 by Sarah

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, prominant Egyptian dissident and member of POMED’s Board of Advisors, has been sentenced to 2 years in prison, after an Egyptian judge found that Ibrahim’s writings had harmed the country’s reputation.  Ibrahim has  urged President Bush and Congress to tie financial aid to Egypt to democractic reform, and has accused President Hosni Mubarak of manipulating the country’s peaceful relationship with Israel, as well as fears of Islamist extremism, to keep U.S. aid flowing.

In response to his sentence, Ibrahim states, “my real crime is speaking out in defense of the democratic governance Egyptians deserve.”

Blake Hounshell at FP Passport argues that despite the fact that Ibrahim has a lot of admirers on Capitol Hill, that “with the [Bush administration’s] ‘freedom agenda’ long dead, perhaps Hosni Mubarak’s government….thinks it can get away with it.”

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Egypt, Foreign Aid, Freedom, Islamist movements, Muslim Brotherhood, POMED, US foreign policy |