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TARA TODRAS / WHITEHILL / REUTERS

EGYPT: A protester at a rally in support of judges last week. The protest turned violent when riot police cracked down

Special Report | Arab Democracy

Signs Of Freedom

The Bush Administration provides moral support, but brave Arab democrats battling authoritarian regimes are the real heroes

By SCOTT MacLEOD | Cairo

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Posted Sunday, May 14, 2006; 11.24BST
Hisham Bastawisi is no revolutionary. An Egyptian appeals-court judge, his conservative leanings are evident in his dark suits, round spectacles and polished shoes. During most of his years on the Court of Cassation, he avoided rocking the boat. Yet by leveling charges of fraud in parliamentary elections late last year, Bastawisi has suddenly shot to local fame as an outspoken critic of President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian rule. Along with Mahmoud Mekki and other senior judicial colleagues, Bastawisi is leading a so-called Revolt of the Judges, which Mubarak's regime fears may galvanize other groups demanding reform.

After alleging election irregularities, which included police assaults on opposition voters and complicity of pro-regime judicial poll monitors in ballot rigging, Bastawisi criticized the government's failure to investigate fully. He also revived longstanding calls to give the judiciary true independence from Mubarak's military-backed government. For defaming fellow jurists and mouthing off to the media, authorities hauled Bastawisi and Mekki before a disciplinary panel that could strip them of their robes. But they refuses to be silenced. "The regime doesn't want any reform," Bastawisi, 55, the son of a lawyer and father of two law students, told Time last week. "They don't want us to say the truth. But people have begun to desire reform and are ready to sacrifice for it. The number of these people is increasing."

These days, it's common to be pessimistic about the future of democracy in the Middle East. The showdown between Mubarak and the judges offers a good illustration of the problem, with unfortunate timing: this week, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt plays host to a gathering of global and regional leaders attending a World Economic Forum meeting, which will focus on how reform in the Middle East can meet the demands of the Arab baby-boom generation. A year ago, the Bush Administration and many pundits were hailing an Arab Spring, a season of elections and people-power protests that heralded a democratic wave across the Middle East. Almost everywhere, it seems, steps forward have been followed by reversals. The hopes raised by the December parliamentary elections in Iraq gave way two months later to a spasm of Sunni-Shi'ite warfare. Jordanians are becoming ever more impatient for King Abdullah II to deliver on his grand promises of political reform. Saudis enthusiastically went to the polls for the first time in decades in 2005, but the municipal councils they elected have still not been set up. In Egypt, where expectations were among the highest, the showdown with the judges reveals how Mubarak's regime is digging in. A flawed election in December once again handed his ruling National Democratic Party overwhelming control of parliament. In pouncing on the judges for crying foul, the regime is warning that change in Egypt will come extremely slowly, if at all.

Yet the Revolt of the Judges also shows why there is cause for hope: in Egypt and across the region, Bastawisi and other freedom seekers are coming forward with unprecedented determination to demand change. It is not a revolution. It does not have a Václav Havel or a Nelson Mandela. There is little prospect of quick, dramatic results. But from Morocco to Bahrain, all sorts of extraordinary Arabs — journalists, rights campaigners, women's activists, election watchdogs, opposition politicians, students, street protesters and refuseniks like Bastawisi — have opened up democratic space to an extent that was only dreamed of a few years ago. Armed with growing numbers of new advocacy organizations, pressure groups, media outlets and Internet sites, Arab democrats are demanding everything from proper elections, a free press and human-rights monitoring to gender equality. They are claiming some victories that add up to notable if still largely symbolic progress, and helping to erect a civil society that is clamoring for a peaceful end to authoritarianism.

Egyptian activists, for example, are struggling to create new political parties, which are needed to offer voters a 21st century alternative to the ruling oligarchs, Arab nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists who have dominated politics since the 1952 revolution. Young Lebanese are forming groups to demand an end to the sectarian system that divvies up power among feudal bosses. In ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, where the ruling al Saud family and Wahhabi religious establishment have tightly controlled affairs for nearly 75 years, groups of petitioners and individual writers are making a case for a liberal opening-up of society.

Continued ...