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Viewing cable 07CAIRO1934, AYMAN NOUR LETTERS TO POTUS AND THE SECRETARY

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
07CAIRO1934 2007-06-25 09:23 2011-08-24 16:30 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Cairo
VZCZCXRO4728
RR RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHKUK RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #1934/01 1760923
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 250923Z JUN 07
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5816
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 001934 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR WATERS AND DAVIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PHUM KDEM EG
SUBJECT: AYMAN NOUR LETTERS TO POTUS AND THE SECRETARY 
 
REF: CAIRO 1931 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED.  NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. 
 
1. (SBU) Per reftel, following are the texts, as translated 
by Embassy Cairo staff, of two separate letters from 
imprisoned Al Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour to President Bush 
and to the Secretary.  Nour's wife passed the letters to 
poloff on June 22, and asked that they not be passed to 
President Bush or the Secretary until June 26.  Nour wrote 
the letters in apparent anticipation of a positive court 
ruling in his appeal for health parole, that he expects will 
be issued on June 26.  Both letters are written as if a 
ruling in his favor has already been issued, and are focused 
on Nour's fear that such a ruling ordering his release will 
not be implemented, and his apparent hope that the USG will 
push the GOE to implement such a ruling immediately. 
 
2. (SBU) Begin text of Embassy translation of Nour letter to 
President Bush: 
 
Dear Mr. President, 
 
Greetings, appreciation, gratitude and warmth. 
 
I write these lines to you from my prison cell, feeling 
grateful for every sincere effort that has been made to lift 
injustice away from me, after two years of restricting my 
freedom under the pretext of executing a judicial ruling 
against me, which God knows was fabricated, political in 
nature and retaliatory.  God also knows the violence and 
cruelty that I have faced, and still face in prison, for the 
same motives and reasons that put me in it.  This cruelty did 
not stop at simply depriving me of my freedom, nor just 
depriving me of my rights as a prisoner, but has, in recent 
months, amounted to depriving me of all my rights as a human 
being, such as my right to medical treatment and to bodily 
safety.  Perhaps the unprecedented attack against me on May 
12, 2007 has been the most bloody violation, leaving behind 
sixteen injuries that will remain a living testimony to the 
nature and reality of the penalty and hefty price that I, my 
family and my party are paying, ever since I contested the 
presidential elections in which I came in second to the 
President (Mubarak) -- then I became his prisoner. 
 
Mr. President, your words, which traveled from Prague to my 
prison in South Cairo, were a surprise that broke my feelings 
of loneliness and the pain of injustice and illness, and 
which have amplified, every day since, my hope in that dawn 
that will rise with freedom, justice and the victory of 
principles over interests. 
 
Mr. President, a few hours ago, an immediately-executable 
ruling in my favor was issued by the Egyptian State Council, 
releasing me for medical reasons.  This after six months of 
reviewing the case, during which the hope of this verdict 
being issued was the candle that lit the darkness of this 
horrible prison, and the dream that this prison will not turn 
into a grave where my 42 years of age will end, and bring to 
an end the lesson that some are trying to teach my generation 
and all those who dream of freedom and human dignity. 
 
Mr. President, there have been increasing doubts, since your 
Prague speech, and the Appropriations Committee's most recent 
decision to suspend a part of (U.S.) assistance (to Egypt), 
that the authorities who restricted my freedom under the 
pretext of executing a judicial ruling, will now not execute 
this new ruling in my case, out of concern that it would look 
like a response to foreign pressures. 
 
This attitude is apparent in recent articles in 
government-backed newspapers, and through some in the 
government and judicial apparatus, which began, since the 
Prague speech, to make up judicial decisions that ae false, 
both in form and matter, claiming a typ of conflict of 
rulings, in order to keep me in rison for more years, 
awaiting the conclusion ofthis conflict, which ultimately 
would mean my deth in this prison.  I believe that the next 
hourscall for a serious effort that aims to attain a 
pecific end; namely, the implementation of the issed 
verdict, and not the circumvention of it. 
 
ishing you the best. 
 
Dr. Ayman Nour 
Torah Al azra,ah Prison 
South Cairo 
 
End text of letter o POTUS. 
 
CAIRO 00001934  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
3. (SBU) Begin text of Embassy translation of Nour letter to 
the Secretary: 
 
Dear Madame Secretary Dr. Condoleezza Rice, 
 
Greetings, appreciation, gratitude and warmth. 
 
I still remember the few words we exchanged during our first 
and last meeting, with the same gratitude and appreciation 
with which I remember the efforts you have exerted throughout 
the two years that I have spent here in my prison cell; from 
where I write to you these lines that escape the hell of 
injustice, coercion and the assassination of all rights and 
human dignity. 
 
Dear Madame Secretary, all the different efforts that were 
exerted locally and internationally to release me and put an 
end to this farce, have always collided with a sturdy 
obstacle - that Egyptian authorities claim that they are 
simply implementing a judicial ruling, that must be executed. 
 And regardless of the veracity of this claim or its absolute 
falseness, a few hours ago, an immediately-executable ruling 
was issued in my favor, releasing me for medical reasons and 
upholding the ruling by the Egyptian State Council after six 
months of reviewing the case.  There is an impending danger 
threatening my life and risking my permanent incapacitation, 
which calls for my immediate release, from the minute of 
issuing the verdict, which is executable immediately as soon 
as drafted. 
 
Madame Secretary, I feel deep gratitude for those generous 
words that President Bush spoke in Prague, and which brought 
back to me in my prison so much confidence, and hope that 
principles may prevail over interests.  Nonetheless, these 
words, followed by the Appropriations Committee's recent 
decision (regarding U.S. assistance to Egypt) have raised 
many doubts about the implementation of the ruling in my 
favor (which legally should be implemented immediately), 
under the pretext that the (Egyptian) authority which 
unjustly imprisoned me will now regard executing the ruling 
in my favor a submission to foreign pressures.  So, this time 
I will pay with my life as the price for stubbornness and 
unjustified revenge, after I paid for two years with my 
freedom as the hefty price for legitimate electoral 
competition that gave me the title of "first runner-up" to 
the President, which was amended hours later to "Prisoner of 
the President" 
 
Madame Secretary Dr. Rice, for days, the official press as 
well as the police and judicial corps have been paving the 
way to impede the execution of this historical ruling as soon 
as it is issued.  For instance, they have threatened the 
presiding judge in the case that a ruling in my favor will be 
because of American pressures, and he will be accused of 
being a U.S. agent.  Also, through efforts that that have 
nothing to do with the law and have no precedence in Egyptian 
judicial history, the government got the very same judge who 
first ruled in this very same fabricated case (and who had 
ruled against Saad El Din Ibrahim years before me) to reject 
releasing me on medical grounds (although it is legally not 
within his jurisdiction), without me even appearing before 
him, in order to create a fabricated and fake case of 
conflict of rulings.  Based on that ruling, the authorities 
may claim that they have to refer this conflict in judicial 
decisions to the Supreme Constitutional Court before they can 
release me, which could also take several more years. 
 
Madame Secretary, this legal charade, the chapters of which 
started long before the issuance of this ruling (which is 
immediately executable under the law), only means that there 
a decision to execute me outside of law, and to bloodlessly 
assassinate me.  Unfortunately, though we committed no sin, 
I, my family, my party, and my supporters have paid a heavy 
price during the past two years through being made an example 
of, and through the deprivation of my right to physical 
safety and human dignity. 
 
Unconditionally implementing this ruling and not 
circumventing would allow to taste freedom, even briefly, and 
help my health which has significantly deteriorated, even 
though I am only 42 years old, because of being deprived of 
medical treatment and my repeated subjection in prison to 
brutal accidents and abuse; most recently in May 2007 when 
the photos they took of the marks on my body were leaked. 
But unfortunately, this was not the first such incident of 
abuse and most certainly will not be the last, if they 
refrain from executing this ruling which gives me back my 
freedom only (I note that my political rights and my right to 
 
CAIRO 00001934  003 OF 003 
 
 
a professional career would remain suspended for several more 
years, unless the President issues a full amnesty, which he 
previously refused to do when more than a third of the 
members of parliament submitted such a request in 2006). 
 
Madame Secretary, the next few hours call for a special 
effort that aims to reach the goal of implementing this 
ruling which is immediately executable.  It is likely that 
the authorities will try to adopt a contradictory official 
position under the pretext of some lie or forged claim, which 
would make it difficult for them to abide by this ruling 
which is immediately executable; and more so to abide by 
reason and logic and having them prevail over stubbornness, 
retaliation and exemplary punishment and all the episodes of 
this tragic series which refuses to end so far. 
 
When I hope for a special effort that aims to attain the 
implementation of this judicial ruling, I know very well that 
it would be a difficult effort and not an easy or a welcomed 
one, but it is of course important and valuable if it attains 
its goal, and remains forever as such even if, God forbid, it 
does not attain it. 
 
Thankfully, I repeat my gratitude, appreciation and my 
continuous wishes of luck and happiness for your dear person. 
 
Dr. Ayman Nour 
Torah Al Mazra,ah Prison 
South Cairo 
 
End text of Embassy translation. 
 
 
JONES