Saad Eddin Ibrahim Returns to DePauw Wednesday; Reception Planned

April 14, 2003

April 14, 2003, Greencastle, Ind. - Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian-American scholar and activist and former DePauw University professor whose imprisonment and eventual acquittal drew worldwide attention, will return to the Greencastle campus this Wednesday, April 16. Dr. Ibrahim's friend and former colleague, professor of political science Robert E. Calvert, is hosting a reception for Ibrahim and his wife Barbara (Lethem, DePauw 1971) that will take place from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Student Social Center of the Walden Inn. All are invited to attend.

"After three years, three prison sojourns, (and two missed Duck reunions) I am finally a free man," Professor Ibrahim writes in an e-mail to his DePauw friends. "It is hard to find words to tell you how much your help and concern has meant to me. I read your letters and email in prison and kept up with your spirited organizing on our behalf. We read and treasure each one. I hope in the coming weeks to be able to see many of you, to say in person what a good thing it is at my stage of life to discover such caring and support by generations of students, colleagues, and friends like yourselves." Ibrahim taught at DePauw from 1967 to 1974.

On March 18, Egypt's highest court acquitted Dr. Ibrahim of a variety of charges, including tarnishing Egypt's image -- charges that he had been convicted of twice previously in trials that were criticized internationally (read more here). The professor spent more than a year in prison. He and 27 associates at the Ibn Khaldun Center, an independent think tank Ibrahim established in 1988, were arrested in June 2000 and charged with tarnishing Egypt's image, embezzlement and accepting foreign money without government approval. Human rights organizations condemned the arrests and subsequent trials and convictions. Last August, President Bush said requests for additional American aid to Egypt would be ignored as long as the professor remained jailed.

DePauw University has remained steadfast in its support of Dr. Ibrahim. In late October, more than 70 protesters, many of them alumni and students of DePauw University, demonstrated outside of the Egyptian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., calling for Dr. Ibrahim's release from prison (read more here). The Middle East Times ran a February 4, 2002 story entitled, "Ex-students rally to Ibrahim's cause." You can read more about it by clicking here. DePauw was also mentioned in a December article in the London Review of Books, accessible here.

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