Human rights activist fears murder if would return to Egypt

A newspaper today quoted human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim as saying that he fears arrest and murder made to appear as suicide should he return to Egypt, Agence-France Presse reported.

According to the article: “The Egyptian-American sociologist, currently in Switzerland because of an ongoing clampdown by the Egyptian authorities, told Al-Masri al-Yom that the authorities would use their powers of detention without trial to jail him.”

“I expect that I will be detained for questioning and placed in provisional detention, on the pretext that I might flee abroad,” Ibrahim said, adding: “They will say Saad Eddin Ibrahim had a guilty conscience, that he could not live with himself because he sold out his country, and so he committed suicide.”

Ibrahim was sentenced in 2001 to seven years in prison for “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation.”

Ibrahim also commented on the government of President Hosni Mubarak. “The regime is going through a serious crisis, which is getting worse every day,” he said.

The article states that: “Several journalists have in recent weeks been given custodial sentences of up [to] two years on charges ranging from misquoting the justice minister to discussing Mubarak’s health.”

Forty media rights groups recently held an international meeting, calling on Egypt “to stop pursuing journalists and threatening them with imprisonment simply for expressing their critical opinions of the Egyptian government.”

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