The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

New charges against Nour?

I hadn't heard about it, but according to the Chicago Tribune new charges are being brought against Ayman Nour:
Among the new charges against Nour: calling Mubarak "ineffective" and "a loser" during a political rally last fall, beating a police officer with a stick on Election Day and putting up a statue to an Egyptian composer, something prosecutors said is an offense against Islam.

"I admit I called Mubarak a loser," Nour said wryly. "But beating a police officer? It never happened." Nour shrugged off the charge regarding the statue as "harassment."
The article is worth reading as a whole for how Nour is being treated (his cell and food constantly searched for mobile SIM chips) and how these new charges are being brought, in one theory, to prevent Nour's wife Gameela Ismail from attending a conference in Washington, DC.

The regime was off-balance for much of 2005. Now, with no (meaningful) elections for another few years, it has regained its footing and is tightening the grip. Over the weekend at least 12 Muslim Brothers, including a member of the Guidance Council, were arrested under the ludicrous charge of "trying to revive the banned organization's activities." The regional conjuncture could not be more helpful for Mubarak to get away, figuratively and probably literally, with murder.