Dear Friends,

You will find below a statement issued by the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies regarding the arrest of Amr Tharwat a young employee at the Center. He has been in Egyptian custody for one week now, along w/ four other family members, and we have been able to discover nothing about his specific whereabouts or what he is being charged with.

We at the Ibn Khaldun Center consider his arrest as simply another manifestation of the current regime's complete disregard for human rights and basic human liberties.

Please do all you can do through whatever channels you have at your disposal to pressure the Egyptian government to release Amr and his family members.

Sincerely,

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim Chairman, Ibn Khaldun Center

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June 7th, 2007

On Wednesday May 30th, Amr Tharwat an Ibn Khaldun employee, was arrested by Egyptian State Security at his families' residence in Matereya. Mr. Tharwat was the major organizer of the recent Shura Election monitoring as well as the Ibn Khaldun public opinion polling that was carried out earlier this year. In addition to Mr. Tharwat, the Egyptian authorities arrested four other people staying at the house of Dr. Ahmed Sobhy (Adellatif Mohamed Saied, Ahmed Dahmash, Abdelhamed Abdelrahman, Ahmed El Sayed, Amr Tharwat) and confiscated files, books, and computers that were found on the premises. Those arrested were originally taken to the Shubra El Khima police station, but in the seven days since their arrest nothing has been heard regarding there whereabouts or the nature of the charges filed against them. Several human rights organizations as well as the team of lawyers working on this case have made repeated requests to the Egyptian government regarding this issue and have received no response until now. Some speculate that the group was arrested due to their involvement in the religious "Quranic" movement which stresses the importance of the Quran over the Sunna and Hadith.

A website was recently constructed for the movement which has gained notoriety for criticizing fatwas issued by Al Azhar authorities. The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies strongly condemns the arrest of Egyptian citizens for peacefully exercising their rights of free expression. We call upon local as well as international civil society organizations to help convince the Egyptian authorities to immediately disclose the location of those arrested and to allow them access to legal representation.

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim -

ICDS Chairman

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