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FREE AYMAN NOUR

Ibn Khaldun Center, Press Release Washington - March 18, 2006 - Freedom House, along with the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, and human rights activists from Egypt, the Middle East, Europe and the United States and Members of the European Parliament are issuing a call for a demonstration to be held in front of the White House(Side Walk) on Saturday March 25, 2006, from 11:00 to 3:00 p.m., to demand the release of the Egyptian liberal oppositionist Ayman Nour. The Egyptian government led by President Mubarak has imprisoned Ayman Nour on the basis of concocted, political charges. Ayman Nour is a prominent figure in the Egyptian civil opposition movement. He came second in the last presidential elections where he ran against President Mubarak, and, having dared to challenge Mubarak, he was thrown in prison immediately after the elections. The Egyptian government has a long history of censoring political speech and of imprisoning those who express opposition to President Mubarak’s regime based on false, contrived charges. They do so through many ways, one of which is by enlisting the judiciary to endorse and carry out their goals. The judge that sentenced Mr. Ayman Nour to five years imprisonment, Adel Abdel Salam Gom’a, is the same judge that had previously sentenced Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the prominent democracy and human rights activist, to prison on similarly concocted political charges. Mr. Gom’a is known among Egyptian human rights activists as the “regime’s judge.” We invite the media, and all who wish to stand in defense of human rights, democracy, and reform in the Middle East to join the demonstration in order to convey a message to President Bush’s administration to keep putting pressure over the Egyptian regime to release Ayman Nour and cease its persecution of the advocates of democracy and reform in Egypt. Show your support for Ayman Nour as one of the symbols of the liberal opposition in Egypt. For more information, please contact the demonstration coordinators: Magdi Khalil - 202 725 3091 Anna Mahjar Barducci - 202 701 7661

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