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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

Letter of Appeal from the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility

His Excellency Mohammed Hosni Mubarak
President of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Abdeen Palace
Cairo, Egypt

Your Excellency:

We write to protest in the strongest possible terms both the seven-year prison sentence imposed on the sociologist Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim and the conduct of his trial.

As an organization of scientists that pleaded his case as well as those of 27 others linked to his Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies over the past year, we are dismayed at the sentences they have received in connection with their exercise of their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and association. Moreover, we fear that these sentences signal an effort by the government of Egypt to squelch political dissidents and human rights defenders.

Especially disturbing are aspects of Dr. Ibrahim’s trial that flaunted internationally accepted norms of jurisprudence. Its very hearing by the Supreme Security Court whose decisions are not subject to appeal suggests lack of due process as does the pronouncing of sentence speedily only 90 minutes after summations were concluded and while the submission of voluminous briefs by the defense was still in progress. Moreover, the judges never explained the counts on which Dr. Ibrahim was found guilty. Regrettably, these irregularities suggest that the decision handed down was politically “preordained.”

We respectfully request that Egypt confirm its commitment to democracy by correcting this miscarriage of justice and providing Dr. Ibrahim’s lawyers a fair opportunity to file their appeal.

Sincerely yours,


Joel L. Lebowitz
Paul H. Plotz
Walter Reich
Co-Chairs

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