On 29 September, renowned Egyptian-American sociologist, political activist and human rights advocate Saadeddine Ibrahim died, aged 84.
Mr Ibrahim was famous for founding and chairing the Ibn-Khaldun Center for Development, and for his outspoken criticism of Egyptian President Mohamed Hosny Mubarak—President in 1981 – 2011.
Saadeddine Ibrahim was born on 31 December 1938 in the village of Bedeen, Mansoura, in Daqahliya on the eastern Nile Delta, where he attended school. He studied Sociology at Cairo University, graduating in 1960. In 1968 he earned a PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington.
Dr Ibrahim taught at the American University in Cairo (AUC), the American University of Beirut (AUB), De Paul University in Chicago, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Washington. Until he died, he was Professor of Political Sociology at AUC.
Dr Ibrahim married his student Barbara Lethem Ibrahim, who is the founding director of the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at AUC. Together they had a daughter, Randa, and a son, Amir, and four grandchildren.
In 1983 and 1985 Dr Ibrahim co-founded the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), and the Cairo-based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR).
In 1988, he founded the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies (ICDS) in Cairo, with an idea for the centre to focus on issues of development, democratisation, and gender empowerment.
Despite being a controversial figure both on the local and international scenes, Dr Ibrahim will go down in history for his academic rigour in research, as well as his contribution toward human rights and civil society in Egypt.
In addition to having founded or co-founded EOHR, AOHR and ICDS, he founded and directed a number of think tanks and institutions that advocate human rights in the Arab World; these include the Arab Thought Forum, the Arab Board for Childhood and Development, the Arab Democracy Foundation, and Voices for a Democratic Egypt.
Throughout his career, Dr Ibrahim wrote some 2500 articles in Egyptian and Arab newspapers and magazines, and some 400 articles that were published in academic periodicals in Arabic, English, and French. Some of his articles were translated into 13 languages. He also wrote scores of books on topics such as human rights, minorities, and the condition and predicaments facing Egypt and the Arab World.
Dr Ibrahim criticised late President Mubarak for having remained in power for more than 10 years, arguing that: “any leader who remains in power more than ten years develops a sense of ownership of the country.” He alleged that Mubarak was grooming one of his sons to succeed him.
In 2000, Dr Ibrahim was charged, arrested and sentenced to seven years for accepting, without approval from Egyptian relevant authorities, international funds through ICDS to promote civil society and election monitoring in Egypt. A higher court later acquitted him and he was released after having spent three years in prison.
In 2008, a Cairo Misdemeanours Court sentenced Dr Ibrahim in absentia to two years, for ‘defaming Egypt’; he was granted a bail of EGP10,000. The reason for the case against him, and a further 16 cases filed in 2008, was because he called on the US to condition its aid to Egypt on improvements in the country’s human rights record. This, which did not sit at all well with Egyptians, he advocated in an article published by the Washington Post, and in a meeting with President George W. Bush in 2007, during which he lobbied the former US president to pressure Egypt into further democratic reform. Following that meeting, he went into self-imposed exile outside Egypt. Yet in 2010, he returned to Egypt for a short family visit.
In February 2011, shortly after Mubarak stepped down, Saadeddine Ibrahim returned permanently to Egypt, AUC made him Emeritus Professor, and he continued his work with ICDS until he breathed his last.
Watani International
2 October 2023