Egyptian dissident convicted

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a longtime critic of the Egyptian government, has been convicted in absentia for "tarnishing Egypt's reputation" and sentenced to two years in prison. Saad spent about 10 months in jail after an earlier conviction in 2001, and he was released thanks to U.S. pressure.

Saad was my boss and mentor while I worked at the Ibn Khaldun Center in Cairo, the pro-democracy NGO and think tank he founded. An extraordinarily gracious and charismatic man, all he wants is to see a free and democratic Egypt. Under constant threat of arrest, the 69-year-old sociologist has been living in exile, his income under severe strain.

This new conviction is ludicrous, though it has been a long time coming. It's obviously payback for Saad's efforts to lobby for cuts in the U.S. aid package. Though he is hardly the shadowy, all-powerful player the Egyptian state media make him out to be, Saad does have a lot of admirers in the media and on Capitol Hill who will not look too kindly on this move. But with the "freedom agenda" long dead, perhaps Hosni Mubarak's government -- which has been ruling under a repressive "state of emergency" since 1981 -- thinks it can get away with it.