Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim will be part of a panel discussion on Egypt, Islam and Democracy on Friday, March 18 at 3 p.m. in the Aquinas College, Wege Student Center Loutit Room. Dr. Ibrahim is a renowned human rights activist and professor of sociology at the American University of Cairo and is currently in residence at George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. Other panel members are Dr. Roger J. Durham, Aquinas Associate Professor of Political Science and Dr. Deborah J. Wickering, Aquinas Assistant Professor in-the-College.

He founded the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, a research and advocacy institute in Cairo, concerned with issues of democratization and political and social development. In the summer of 2000, he and 27 of his colleagues were arrested and tried on charges allegedly connected to their work at the Center. Dr. Ibrahim was sentenced to a seven-year term but was acquitted and released in March 2003. In 2003 he received the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy's first 'Muslim Democrat of the Year' award in recognition of his "heroic and unrelenting struggle for freedom, human rights and democracy in Egypt throughout the Arab and Muslim world."

For additional information, please contact Dr. Michaeleen Kelly at (616) 204-1144 or
(616) 356-2403.