Dr. AIDA SEIF EL-DAWLA
El-Dawla is with the Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture in Cairo. She was profiled by Time magazine as a global hero in 2004. She sent an email to the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killings. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including minister of Interior Habib El Adly. Process [is] not transparent.”
KHALED BEYDOUN
Beydoun is co-founder of FreeEgyptNow.org — he is currently in Detroit and will be in D.C. Tuesday.
He said today: “Mubarak gained an absurd amount of wealth by effectively impoverishing his own people, and therefore, his funds should be frozen, reclaimed, and returned to the people of Egypt. … One cannot ignore the thousands of imprisoned Egyptians who were locked away for the very same actions and behavior of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square — political dissent, speaking truth to power and organizing against government repression and corruption. The army should take the immediate steps to vindicate these individuals, as well as any detained since January 25.” See: “Mubarak family fortune could reach $70 billion, say experts.”
GILBERT ACHCAR
Currently traveling in North America and available for a limited number of interviews, Achcar is professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. He said today: “Barack Obama’s statement [following Mubarak’s resignation] was very obviously trying to make the best of what actually is a severe blow to U.S. influence in the region, because it affects a major ally of the United States, a major strategic ally of the United States. That’s what Egypt has been since the early ’70s in the region. So what Obama basically has been trying is to recuperate this whole event as a confirmation of the adherence of the Egyptian people to U.S. values. … But if we get to real democratic elections and the people of Egypt really have their say in the political direction of events and the foreign policy of their country, you can be sure that the choice won’t be friendly to either the state of Israel or the United States of America as a hegemonic power.”
Achcar, whose latest book is The Arabs and the Holocaust, has done a series of interviews on Egypt with The Real News. The latest is titled: “Will Democracy Movement Challenge Military After Mubarak?”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
