CAIRO (AFP) — The wife of Egypt's best-known political dissident, Ayman Nur, on Tuesday lashed out at President Hosni Mubarak for failing to grant him the pardon he gave to more than 1,500 other prisoners.
Nur, who mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran leader Mubarak during the 2005 presidential election before being jailed on forgery charges many see as trumped up, was on Tuesday eligible for pardon for the first time.
"Who should be pardoned? Ayman Nur or murderers, spies and deserters?" read a sign held aloft by Nur's wife, Gamila Ismail, in the sweltering summer heat outside Cairo's notorious Torah prison.
Ismail had been hoping her husband, a diabetic whose health has reportedly deteriorated since he was jailed in 2005, would be one of the 1,587 prisoners who were pardoned by Mubarak on Tuesday.
Security forces tried to prevent her speaking to journalists outside the prison
"I'm not in the prison, I have the right to speak to the press where and when I want," she shouted at the around 150 uniformed and plainclothed police, amid minor scuffles with security forces.
Nur, a 44-year-old lawyer who led his Ghad party during Egypt's first ever presidential elections in September 2005, was put behind bars three months later for fraud, a charge widely seen as politically motivated.
Washington had been sharply critical of Nur's arrest and detention and repeatedly called for his release, although US criticism of the case that raised tensions with key regional ally Egypt has died off in recent months.
He came a distant second against Mubarak, in power since 1981, and was sentenced to five years in jail for forging affidavits needed to set up his party.
In an interview from jail last year, Nur told AFP he had gone from being a victim of "political assassination" to being subjected to "physical destruction", insisting the regime wants him to die behind bars.
In May, Nur was forbidden from publishing newspaper articles from his jail cell. He was already barred from receiving or sending letters, a move his wife described as showing "a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner."
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