Region | Egypt
Egypt's Kefaya leader Al Meseri dies at 70
Abdul Wahab Al Meseri, who led an Egyptian movement demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's rule, has died. He was 70.
- AP
- Published: 00:07 July 4, 2008
Cairo: Abdul Wahab Al Meseri, who led an Egyptian movement demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's rule, has died. He was 70.
Al Meseri died of cancer on Wednesday night, Hossam Tokan, director of the Palestine Hospital in Cairo, said yesterday.
Al Meseri, a professor at Cairo's Ain Shams University, was elected coordinator of the Egyptian Movement for Change, or Kefaya, in 2007.
During a Kefaya protest against the government's economic policies in January he was beaten by police who grabbed him with his wife to be found later abandoned in the desert outside Cairo.
"He was subjected to harsh and despicable treatment by the regime but remained defiant and courageous to the moment of his death," said George Ishaq, a co-founder of Kefaya and his predecessor as leader of the movement.
Ishaq said Al Meseri will be buried in his Nile Delta hometown of Damanhour yesterday. He said the movement's leadership will meet soon to elect a new coordinator.
The state-run Middle East News Agency described Al Meseri's death as "a great loss for the Arab and Islamic nations". Al Meseri was also considered one of the Arab world's leading experts on Jewish and Israeli affairs. Over a quarter century, he compiled the eight-volume Jews, Judaism and Zionism Encyclopedia. Saudi ruling family is believed to have financed the $450,000 (about Dh1,653,291) project.
In the 3,500-page work, Al Meseri theorised that the problem is not with the Jews but rather with Zionism. He looked on Zionism not as a national movement for Jews but as a racist "phenomenon".
He viewed Israel as a colonial stronghold imposed by Western powers to defend their interests in the Middle East.
Al Meseri rejected the notion of excluding Jews and called for the coexistence of Arabs and Israelis in a democratic country.
Al Meseri also published half a dozen books on Zionism and topics related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
He graduated from Columbia University in New York and later earned a doctorate in English literature from Rutgers university in New Jersey. Al Meseri is survived by his son, Yasser, a daughter, Noura, and wife Huda Hijazi.
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