FP: The government seems to be very upset about the active role Egyptians played in your work.
RB: Were people in the government upset that some political parties sprang up and ran some good campaigns? I don't know; I've never heard that. Our operation dealt with the Islamists, the nationalists, the ex-NDP parties, the liberals, the socialists.
I know that we sent Egyptians to observation missions to Nigeria to cover the elections last summer, and we have also embedded them in campaigns in other parts of the world so that they can see firsthand how political campaigns work.
NDI has operated in 120 countries around the world. We've done a lot of election observation. We draw from a wide array of people that we've dealt with in other countries.
FP: So why did you bring a bag with you to the cage?
RB: One of the defendants had lived in the UK, and there's a saying that if you bring your umbrella, it never rains, so we all decided that if we packed a bag, we wouldn't be detained overnight. And so a few days ago I packed a bag. A few change of clothes, towels, some toiletries and a book to read. I'm not a very superstitious person, but it's worked so far.
SUBJECTS:
