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Mubarak using terror tactics, says activist
WASHINGTON — A prominent Egyptian human rights activist has accused President Hosni Mubarak's government of perfecting the art of using scare tactics to repress opposition to his 23-year rule. The soon to be injured and silenced activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, writing a guest column in The Washington Post, said those who exercise power in Mubarak's government argue that radicals would win any unfettered election should he choose to allow true democracy in the country.

Ibrahim, who spent more than a year in an Egyptian jail before being exonerated on charges related to his election-monitoring activities, said none of Mubarak's Western listeners ever demand answers to pertinent questions in the face of the president's scare tactics. "What, Mr Mubarak, have you done to preserve the popularity of non-religious forces in the country?" Ibrahim wrote. "What has your regime done with more than $100 billion in foreign aid and remittances from Egyptians working abroad? Why has Egypt's ranking during your rule steadily declined on every development index?"
'fessing up on the American aid would be interesting.
Ibrahim said those failings feed popular discontent and contribute to the religious right's popularity. Meanwhile, scores of supporters of a detained opposition leader demonstrated outside the attorney-general's office in Cairo yesterday, demanding that he be freed immediately. They chanted slogans denouncing the incarceration of Ayman Nur, leader of the recently-established Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party and submitted a memorandum to Attorney-General Maher Abul Wahid calling for Nur to be set free.
Posted by: Steve White 2005-02-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=56351