{"id":403,"date":"2009-02-19T11:06:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T15:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/idblog\/?p=403"},"modified":"2009-02-19T11:10:06","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T15:10:06","slug":"egyptian-dissident-suddenly-released-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2009\/02\/19\/egyptian-dissident-suddenly-released-from-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Egyptian Dissident Suddenly Released From Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Against a backdrop of increased <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2009\/02\/18\/the-freedom-to-scream-in-egypt\/\">repression of bloggers<\/a> and political speech in Egypt, Ayman Nour, a political rival to Hosni Mubarak, has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/02\/19\/world\/middleeast\/19egypt.html?_r=1\">released<\/a> from prison in what most see as a purely political move.  Nour was arrested years ago on weak charges after running against Mubarak in the 2005 election.   Marc Lynch <a href=\"http:\/\/lynch.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2009\/02\/19\/ayman_nours_release_symbol_and_substance\">writes<\/a> that this his detention was for many democracy activists &#8220;the single most potent symbol of Mubarak&#8217;s refusal of American pressures on democracy issues.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Observers tell us not to expect a &#8216;Cairo Spring&#8217; any time soon, though.  The move was likely an attempt to buy good will with the new US administration and Democratic Congress, which was increasingly critical of Nour&#8217;s detention.  As we <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2009\/01\/30\/less-talk-more-action\/\">wrote here<\/a> earlier, Nour&#8217;s detention was raised as key issue for democracy scholar and new NSC staffer Michael McFaul.  Blake Hounshell at Passport <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2009\/02\/18\/egypt_releases_mubaraks_top_rival\">reminds us<\/a> as well that Secretary of State Clinton will arrive soon in Cairo for an official visit, and that Nour&#8217;s release could also ease pressures to limit Egypt&#8217;s annual military aid package, which will come up again for debate this spring.  And as Marc Lynch <a href=\"http:\/\/lynch.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2009\/02\/19\/ayman_nours_release_symbol_and_substance\">concludes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Nour&#8217;s] detention was never the only or even the most significant aspect of the regime&#8217;s crackdown on political opposition, which included the arrest of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, heavy pressures on the press and the judiciary, and much more&#8230;His release does not come close to reversing the authoritarian trends in Egypt.  I hope that this does not become an excuse to begin ignoring democratic reform, human rights and public freedoms issues in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Against a backdrop of increased repression of bloggers and political speech in Egypt, Ayman Nour, a political rival to Hosni Mubarak, has been released from prison in what most see as a purely political move. Nour was arrested years ago on weak charges after running against Mubarak in the 2005 election. Marc Lynch writes that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1814,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1365],"tags":[4681,2230],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","tag-ayman-nour","tag-egypt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1814"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}