PRESIDENT BUSH rightly recognizes that Western ideas have universal origins and application. He has said the right to “liberty and justice” is the “birthright of all people” and specifically emphasized that “all people” include Muslims. He has further said America will stand “alongside people everywhere determined to build a world of freedom, dignity and tolerance,” adding that we will help “those in captive nations achieve democracy.”

In “captive” Egypt–an ally of ours, yes, but still one of many Middle Eastern autocracies–there happens to be a man who is determined to advance the cause of freedom there and achieve democracy. His name is Saad Eddin Ibrahim (see Claudia Winkler’s Egypt’s Sakharov); he is Egypt’s most important human rights activist, and last week in Cairo an Egyptian court sentenced him to seven years in prison following an unjust prosecution.