Mick Hartley

Ayman Nour, leader of Egypt’s liberal opposition party al_Ghad (“Tomorrow”), was arrested a month ago. After renewed interrogation by Mubarak’s agents, he’s now in a prison clinic (via American Future):

On Monday President Bush again called on Egypt to “lead the way” toward democratic change in the Middle East. Apparently Hosni Mubarak, the country’s leader for the past 24 years, wasn’t listening. Later that same day, Mr. Mubarak’s agents renewed their “interrogation” of Ayman Nour, the imprisoned head of the liberal Tomorrow Party. Six hours later — at 1 a.m. — Mr. Nour, a diabetic with a history of heart trouble, was “sweating, vomiting and holding his left arm,” his wife told the Reuters news agency. Authorities refused his doctor’s request that he be hospitalized; instead, he was taken Tuesday to a prison clinic. The Egyptian Human Rights Organization has issued a statement warning that Mr. Nour’s life is in danger. […]

The charge against Mr. Nour, that he is responsible for the forgery of some of the petitions submitted to register his party, is dismissed as groundless by independent Egyptian lawyers. In truth, he is in jail because, like Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated last week, he offered a fresh democratic alternative in a Middle East stirred by the votes of Iraqis and Palestinians. Mr. Nour, like most of the rest of the Egyptian opposition, is not proposing a revolution. Their demand is that Mr. Mubarak lift repressive “emergency” laws and agree to constitutional reforms that would make future elections democratic. Many Egyptian activists, like Mr. Nour, would probably agree to an extension of the president’s term in exchange for his commitment to the constitutional change. The alternative, they point out, is not the “stability” Mr. Mubarak claims to offer, but merely more of the stagnation that has made Egypt a prime breeding ground for Islamic extremists, including many of the leaders of al Qaeda.