Defendant No. 34 Has Her Say
New York Times
By Thomas L. Friedman
In February, in the Cairo courtroom where the democracy advocates were being held in the same kind of cage as Anwar Sadat’s killers, Nancy Okail, Defendant No. 34, stood out. It was not just her beauty. The Egyptian woman who leads the Cairo office of the U.S.-based Freedom House was the one in the cage reading George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia.” It was her gesture of resistance to the Egyptian military regime that had put on trial democracy advocates who dared to partner with Egyptians in promoting democracy in a country that supposedly just had a democratic revolution. Apparently, Okail didn’t have her copy of Orwell’s “1984” or “Animal Farm” — classics on authoritarianism — because this fraudulent show trial could easily have been a chapter in either one.
While seven American democracy workers who were slated to be tried with Okail had been allowed to leave the country, she and dozens of her Egyptian colleagues still face prosecution at a trial re-set for June. She is deeply — and rightly — worried that the U.S., now that it has gotten its citizens out by paying a $5 million bail, will forget about the Egyptian democracy workers.
In February, in the Cairo courtroom where the democracy advocates were being held in the same kind of cage as Anwar Sadat’s killers, Nancy Okail, Defendant No. 34, stood out. It was not just her beauty. The Egyptian woman who leads the Cairo office of the U.S.-based Freedom House was the one in the cage reading George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia.” It was her gesture of resistance to the Egyptian military regime that had put on trial democracy advocates who dared to partner with Egyptians in promoting democracy in a country that supposedly just had a democratic revolution. Apparently, Okail didn’t have her copy of Orwell’s “1984” or “Animal Farm” — classics on authoritarianism — because this fraudulent show trial could easily have been a chapter in either one.
While seven American democracy workers who were slated to be tried with Okail had been allowed to leave the country, she and dozens of her Egyptian colleagues still face prosecution at a trial re-set for June. She is deeply — and rightly — worried that the U.S., now that it has gotten its citizens out by paying a $5 million bail, will forget about the Egyptian democracy workers.
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