The only thing Mossad el-Fatairi had done was dream and for dreaming he paid the heaviest price. The Egyptian accountant who worked in the oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait saw the former international atomic energy watchdog Mohamed ElBaradie talking on TV about the need for reform in Egypt. He liked ElBaradie‘s ideas and started to lobby for these ideas in Kuwait. He met fellow Egyptians and talked to them about the importance of dreaming ElBaradie's dream. But soon this proved a move that shattered everything in his life. “I want my country to be better,” el-Fatairi said. “Is this wrong? Is it a mistake?” he asked. In normal circumstances, the answer to el-Fatairi's questions would be in the negative. But in the bizarre world of Arab politics, the answer can be “Yes” and a big one at that. El-Fatairi was quickly arrested, interrogated for hours, and then thrown in jail along with scores of other Egyptians who expressed support for ElBaradie. They were subjected to the worst types of humiliation at the hands of Kuwaiti security men, they say. And having spent days in Kuwaiti jails, they were forced to board a plane and come back to Egypt leaving everything behind: their money, they clothes, their jobs, and also their ambition for financial stability away from Egypt, a country has a noticeable dearth of this stability. These deportees faced the media on Thursday for the first time since they returned to Egypt two weeks ago. But the stories of horror and humiliation they brought back with them could clearly reflect the intolerance of Arab regimes to opposition, some experts say. “I was beaten and slapped on the face several times,” said Walid Nasr, another deported Egyptian from Kuwait. “Kuwaiti policemen used to mock me and ask me about the reason I backed ElBaradie,” he added. He and his colleagues say when they were arrested, they tried to contact the Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait, but embassy officials “did not care a single whit about us”. That is perhaps why human rights groups accuse the Egyptian government of complicity in the deportation of these Egyptian workers. They say the government had a duty to protect these workers. “The government is responsible for what happened to ElBaradie's supporters in Kuwait,” said Khalid Ali, the director of NGO the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights. “This is arrest and deportation by proxy,” he added. Activists say by being behind the destruction of these people's livelihoods,the Egyptian government wants to make it clear that it would not tolerate opposition. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry denied reports about its involvement in the deportation of the 31 workers from Kuwait. But ElBaradie's supporters say the Kuwaiti government curries favour with the Egyptian regime for sending the army to participate in the liberation of Kuwait in 1990. This might be reason enough why the workers have decided to launch legal procedures against the Kuwaiti government. Professional unions in Egypt are announcing support one after one. “While I might have lost everything by losing my job in Kuwait, I'll continue to fight to change Egypt for the better,” said Mohamed Farag, one of the deported workers. “Nothing will scare me away from struggling for democracy in this country,” he added.
