CAIRO: Opposition figure Ayman Nour who has been in jail for the past two years will no longer be entitled to publish articles in the press, a judicial source said on Tuesday.
The source told AFP the ruling was issued in the higher administrative court, rejecting an appeal from Nour against a ruling handed down in January that also bans him from receiving or sending letters.
This decision shows a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner, said Nour s wife, Gamila Ismail.
Nour, who came a distant second to President Hosni Mubarak in presidential polls in September 2005, was later the same year sentenced to five years behind bars on charges of forging official documents to set up a political party.
His family and human rights groups say Nour s health has sharply deteriorated in prison, but an appeal for his early release on health grounds was turned down in March.
Egypt has rejected as interference US-led criticism of its human rights record and treatment of Nour.
US President George W. Bush wound up a Middle East tour in Egypt on Sunday urging friends and foes in the Middle East, where few leaders are elected, to stop repressing their peoples.
Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail, he said. -AFP
