To mark the 56th anniversary of the 23 July Revolution 1,500 prisoners who have served at least half of their sentences received presidential pardons. Opposition leader Ayman Nour was not among them, Mona El-Nahhas reports Since being jailed in December 2005 opposition leader and founder of the liberal Ghad Party Ayman Nour has remained in the public eye, with many people assuming that his sentence was the price paid for standing against President Hosni Mubarak in 2005 in the first multi-candidate presidential election ever staged in Egypt. Calls for his release are regularly made, by independent and opposition MPs among others, and as regularly ignored. Outside Egypt, the European Parliament and the US administration have both been keen to support the outspoken political reformist and to press for his release. The response they receive has been consistent: Nour was jailed by an Egyptian court and the issue is a domestic one in which no outside parties have a right to interfere. Nour initially contested his five-year sentence in the Court of Cassation, which rejected his appeal. He then petitioned for early release from the Administrative Court on the grounds of ill health -- he suffers from diabetes complicated by heart problems -- but that appeal, too, was rejected. Having exhausted the possible legal routes to an early release, Nour's only hope now lies in a presidential pardon. Amir Salem, Nour's lawyer, issued a plea to President Mubarak on behalf of his 43-year-old client. Under the terms of any presidential pardon Nour would forego his political rights, including standing as a candidate in any future election. Some political analysts had argued that pardoning Nour along with the 1,500 prisoners released last week would be seen by the public as a gesture of good faith and win credibility for the regime. They further pointed out that Nour no longer represents a threat to the succession hopes of Gamal Mubarak who many believe is being groomed to take over from his father. Nour's supporters had planned to visit him at Tora prison on 23 July but when they were refused admittance they staged a protest in front of the offices of the prosecutor-general, chanting slogans demanding Nour's release. During a symposium held at the headquarters of the liberal Ghad Party following the issue of the presidential pardon order, Nour's wife Gamila Ismail questioned the motives of the authorities in excluding her husband's name from the list. In a letter published last week in the independent newspaper Al-Dostour, Nour addressed President Mubarak, saying his exclusion from the list of early releases was tantamount to detaining him by presidential order. In a speech last week urging the release of political prisoners around the world US President George W Bush mentioned Nour by name. But speeches, said the US-based Freedom House organisation in a statement, are no longer a sufficient support of the democratisation process in Egypt. The continued detention of Nour, the organisation claimed, is an insult to the Egyptian people and a slap in Washington's face.
