mr. mubarak is found not guilty. he said likely to become a free person in a few months, whereas there are thousands of political prisoners in egypt today, including many of the revolutionaries, the youth who initiated the january 25 uprising. >> brangham: so for the average egyptian who may have seen mubarak's overthrow as hugely important for the arab spring, what does it mean, that he might soon be a free man? >> well, i think it tells us largely about the fate of the arab spring-- quote, unquote-- nearly four years after it began in a small town in the interior of tunisia in december of 2010. many of the hopes and aspirations that many of us had for the arab world, a renaissance, political democracy, human rights, rule of law, a new era of participation and so on, that largely that has not been fulfilled with the partial exception, quite a hopeful exception, of tunisia. but if we look at egypt if we look at libya, if we look at syria, certainly, if we look at bahrain, very little progress has been made. and autho