Mona El-Nahhas reports on the controversy surrounding the open letter to Barack Obama penned by jailed opposition leader , founder of the liberal Ghad Party, wrote an open letter to US presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama from behind the bars of Tora prison. In the five-page letter, published late last week in the independent Al-Masry Al-Yom, Nour discusses both his personal predicament and the regional situation and asks Obama to stop backing oppressive regimes in the region. Nour presented his views on several regional topics, including US withdrawal from Iraq, the peace process between Israel and Palestine, dialogue with Syria and Iran and the priority of democratic reform in the region. The letter excited predictable responses, with Nour's political opponents arguing that it was a direct incitement for external powers to interfere in Egyptian affairs. Nour, who is serving a five-year jail term on forgery charges which he claims were trumped up, introduces himself as one of many political prisoners in Egypt and the Arab world who are paying a very dear price for their opinions. "The writer of these lines is a man about your age who was, and still is, dreaming like you of change and reform... in our countries, legitimate dreams all too often turn into horrifying nightmares." In the letter he talks about his legal studies, the fields he has worked in since his graduation in 1985 including law, journalism and human rights, and his political career which started in 1995 when he first joined the People's Assembly. He goes on to talk about founding Ghad in 2004 and his participation in the 2005 presidential elections which resulted in his coming second to President Hosni Mubarak. Three months later he was jailed. Stressing that the charges against him were a "naïve fabrication", Nour insists his real crime was "to compete against a president that has been ruling for 27 years and to constitute a threat to his dream of handing Egypt to his son". His offence, says Nour, was to present, via his liberal and civil party, not only a young alternative to the regime but to the influential Islamist movement and a tamed and marginalised opposition. What subsequently happened, Nour charges, was "an assassination of the last promising hope of civil reform". Obama, Nour continued, offered "a gifted and inspiring model for the dream of freedom and change", and concluding his letter he wrote: "Democrats and liberals in Egypt and the Arab world hope that 20 January becomes a day for freedom and democracy the world over." State-owned newspapers quickly swung into action, levelling accusations of treachery against Nour. "The political beggar invites the US to interfere in Egypt's affairs and press for his release... reveals his secret relationship with the US... The prisoner appeals to the incoming US administration after failing with Bush's administration," wrote Ahmed Moussa in Al-Ahram on Saturday under the headline "Illusions of the forger". Karam Gabr, board chairman of the state- owned Rose El-Youssef magazine, was not to be outdone. "What did by writing such a stupid letter was nothing but begging and humiliation," he wrote. Political analysts expect little positive to come of Nour's appeal, noting that no US administration would sacrifice US interests in the region in return for the release of Nour and other political prisoners. "The US has long been using and similar cases as pressure cards to secure concessions from the regime," says political analyst Amr Hashem Rabie. "I don't think the next US administration will act better than Bush's." Since Nour was jailed in December 2005 the US administration has repeatedly called for his release. The response has been consistent: Nour was jailed by an Egyptian court, the issue is a domestic one in which outside parties have no right to interfere. The letter, Rabie argues, needs no justifying since it is related to freedoms and human rights and these are not simply internal matters. Wahid Abdel-Meguid, while questioning the wisdom of Nour's appeal, insists that his patriotism has never been in doubt. Abdel-Meguid believes Nour's psychological state lay behind his writing the letter. Gamila Ismail, Nour's wife, said she does not expect the letter to achieve much. During an interview on TV satellite programme Al-Ashera Masaan Ismail stressed that in writing the letter Nour addressed Obama in his capacity as a US senator and not as a possible future US president. "It's an article, written in the form of an open letter, and will be published in The Washington Post very soon," Ismail said, adding that it's not the first time Nour has written articles for foreign papers. Nour has exhausted all legal routes to an early release. He contested the ruling against him before the Court of Cassation, filed a petition asking for early release on health grounds, and issued a plea to President Mubarak for a presidential pardon, all to no avail. Nour was not among the 1,500 prisoners who received presidential pardons to mark the 56th anniversary of the 23 July Revolution.
