The Battle for Civil Society in Egypt

Professor of Sociology at the American University in Cairo

Saad Eddin Ibrahim is sociology professor at the American University in Cairo and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies. He has taught at several other universities, among them the American University of Beirut, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Washington. He has also served as secretary general of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo, the Arab Thought Forum, and the Arab Council of Childhood and Development.

Ibrahim was arrested in June 2000, shortly before parliamentary elections that his research center had planned to monitor. He was charged with embezzlement, defaming Egypt, and illegally accepting foreign funds. In a politically motivated trial, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. In 2003, he was retried in Egypt’s highest court where he was acquitted of all charges and freed.

Ibrahim is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights International Human Rights Award, the International PEN Writers in Distress Award, and the Freedom House Award. In addition, Ibrahim is an advisor on civil society to UN Secretary General Kofi Anan and a member of the International Bureau for Children Rights' Board of Directors. The author of hundreds of published works in both English and Arabic, Ibrahim recently reissued his 1996 book, Egypt, Islam and Democracy with a new postscript written from prison.