CAIRO: Jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour’s appeal case was rejected Thursday, with the Cairo Court of Cassation upholding the five-year sentence originally assigned.
Most reporters and journalists were kept away from the courtroom, as hundreds of activists and Nour supporters gradually flocked to Cairo’s Supreme Court. The press was denied entrance to the court, while security forces filled the court halls.
Security units cordoned off the courthouse, with truckloads waiting by and more forces called in to control what the ministry deems “illegal gathering and protests. Similar procedures were used against Nour’s supporters and the press on the scene during Nour’s previous trial in December.
Before the appeal, expectations ran high and press reports circulated that the deputy to the Court of Cassation, supported by legal experts, said that the five-year sentence against Nour was “too harsh.
Gameela Ismail, Nour’s wife and El-Ghad party spokesperson, told the press she would be “shocked if her husband was not released.
Mona Makram Ebeid, veteran political analyst and former El-Ghad and upper house member, told The Daily Star Egypt before the results of the appeal were announced that she was hopeful Nour would receive a pardon. She said she was “on the optimistic side. The international public opinion is so much with him . but then again, perhaps it is just wishful thinking.
However, “if he does not, I do not expect that the opposition will rise in his support, Ebeid said. “His supporters are mostly individuals like the Muslim Brotherhood, many people from the left, right, the Nasserites, but no independent blocs . not as a bulk.
“This comes from linking him with Americans, added Ebeid.
The European parliament also supported Nour in a report released Wednesday, saying that the political leader’s case should be reconsidered and called for his release.
Amir Salem, human rights activist and one of Nour’s principal attorneys also told The Daily Star Egypt that Nour would “probably get a retrial and he will be given a new verdict from the cassation court.
As Nour awaited his appeal in his prison cell in Tora Mazraa, he spent his time writing letters to human rights organizations and to Fathi Sorour, head of parliament. His wife, Gameela Ismail and his doctors have tried to convince him, unsuccessfully, to stop his now-three week long hunger strike.
Nour protested what he deemed “humiliation and violations of his rights as a prisoner, with banning him from writing and putting him in “demeaning cell conditions topping what his supporters called a long list.
“I was prevented from writing, which is a violation of my constitutional right, said Nour in one letter. “My papers and letters were seized without grounds . my articles were confiscated because they criticize the ruling party.
Ismail tells The Daily Star Egypt that the prison security was backed by the government, who wanted Nour to be “forgotten and banned from public life.
Once called “a national hero, Nour was quoted as saying that he intends to resign from his work as a lawyer. “The law is absent [in Egypt]; it’s on a break, Nour had said in his letter to Sorour. “My resignation is not a message against the profession itself, which I treasure and whose people I have respected generation after generation, but it’s a message against the state that does not abide by constitutional and legal decrees and does not punish those who violate them.
In his letters to human rights organizations, both local and international, Nour said he has been subjected to “serious violations of his human, prisoner and constitutional rights. Nour also said that the prison warden had accused him falsely of “having suicidal intentions, an accusation that Nour has vehemently denied.
“This claim might imply that I might be made to look like I had committed suicide or perhaps received death threats, said Nour.
“AIDS, tuberculosis and scabies patients were put in the cell next to mine, added Nour. “My right to send or exchange letters with my lawyers and family is also restricted.
According to Nour’s letter, previous correspondence with Egypt’s prosecution and other organizations had been blocked, adding that on many occasions he was denied visits, which he should have been guaranteed according to international prisoners’ rights.
According to El-Ghad newspaper, the El-Ghad party mouthpiece, an inspection committee that examined Nour testified that iron cuffs were placed constantly around his wrists, leaving marks on them, an act that defies prison law, which should guarantee physical safety in custody.
Nour was indicted last December of forging documents and signatures needed to declare his party official. During his trial, chaos broke out outside the courtroom where most reporters where banned and pushed away. Many of Nour’s supporters and some human rights activists burst into tears as they heard news of the five-year sentence handed to Nour.
Nour was Mubarak’s strongest rival in last year’s presidential elections, earning around eight percent of the votes. However, in his latest parliamentary elections, he surprisingly lost his seat, while his party performed poorly.
