8:23PM
UPI's take on Mubarak and Nour
By 
Issandr El Amrani | Egypt
Issandr El Amrani | Egypt
UPI has a bizarre story on Mubarak and Ayman Nour by the often interesting and quirky Arnaud de Borchgrave, in which he celebrates the former canniness and questions the latter's credentials -- notably by giving a long and detailed list of allegations against Nour. His point:
I'm not sure how aid and Nour are related, or what de Borchgrave is trying to say with this. Not that I mind it -- it's good not everybody is just ignoring the suspicious aspects of Nour's past like the Washington Post and its naive (in many different ways) campaign against the Mubarak regime. But it's just a little bizarre that he starts with a flattering (and quite good) anecdote about Mubarak and then goes on being negative about Nour.
Anyway, check it out here.
A checkered background has seldom been a handicap when challenging a strongman in the developing world. In fact, it is often a prerequisite. But it might behoove the administration to take another look at Ayman Nour before it opts to make the annual $2.1 billion aid to Egypt package conditional on democratic change.
I'm not sure how aid and Nour are related, or what de Borchgrave is trying to say with this. Not that I mind it -- it's good not everybody is just ignoring the suspicious aspects of Nour's past like the Washington Post and its naive (in many different ways) campaign against the Mubarak regime. But it's just a little bizarre that he starts with a flattering (and quite good) anecdote about Mubarak and then goes on being negative about Nour.
Anyway, check it out here.
Reader Comments (6)
That's kind of weird. Is all that stuff true? Who would his sources be, and why?
"-- In 1986, in the Wafd newspaper, he published several pictures of jailed Islamic fundamentalists that showed wounds and bruises that the captions said showed wounds and bruises from alleged torture. Two years later, Nour admitted in a televised police interrogation these pictures were taken in his house and the wounds and bruises were nothing more than makeup. "
PLEASE!
this is the zaki badr case...
zaki badr the most ruthless interior minister antagonized the whole society, and torture was a routine, and he said he wouldn't mind killing one third of the society for the rest to live in peace and implented shoot first, ask later policy...and in one crazy session at the parliment he played some forged video tape of nour confessing that wafd paper published false torture pictures... later there was a fist fight and zaki saying soemthing to serag eldeen along the lines of : shoof elli bey7sal fee beetak... a wafd MP was kicked out of the parliment by the majority NDP vote... and zaki evetually "left" his position after alsha3b courageously published a speech he gave where he called every possible egyptian public figure dirty names. eg: ( hassan albnna: ebn el sarma, ekhwan: welad el kalb & welad el a'ars, ahmed bahaa el deen: 3ayel who is on foreigners payroll, mostafa ameen: wesekh & kharban & kalb & khanzeer, mohamed alsaeed: communist ebn kalb, khaled mohyee eldeen: ebn el a'ars, doctor's syndicate are a'rbagiya, engineers are arbagiya, lawyers hawash and gezam adeema, yusuf idrees: alcoholic, esam el eryan mloests kids...etc..etc..)
i'll take nour's word over zaki's at this.....
and btw, this was in 1989 not 1986...
One little weird thing. Is Ayman's name pronounced "amen"? I've heard it chanted a good many times and never heard that..
thanks mohamed, very informative. I'd vaguely heard about this episode, this clarifies a lot.
Praktike is right -- why? UPI is owned by the Moonies, like the Washington Times, which was very anti-Egypt until the Washingon Post took over that role. The the Washington Times got the exclusive interview (along with Charlie Rose, I guess) with Mubarak last time he came to DC. Are they being fed this stuff by Egyptian diplomats or what?
As for the other rumors, they have been printed in the Arabic-language media before, or talked about in political circles. So either he got translated articles (from who?) or had a politically informed (and politically motivated) Egyptian in town giving him the dirt.
What about this alleged faked assasination thing -- that's only 10 years ago. Is this well known? Completely made up? Anyone know?
Yes, I've heard about it in some detail from a pretty senior and trusted Wafd member. After staging his own botched assassination in 1995, the Wafd party was extremely embarassed by the whole incident. They essentially begged the government not to publicise it and made a deal. the senior leadership was very pissed off.
At least that's what they say...