Freedom On The March

On Thursday Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, 22 was convicted of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four years in prison in Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger. Although I think Bush, Cheney and their followers may see this as a good thing. The Blogger-Martyr of Egypt Friday, Feb. 23, 2007 By AMANY RADWAN/CAIRO A chill has just gone through the collective spine of the bloggers of the Middle East. On Thursday, Egypt sentenced Abdel Kareem Suleiman (a.k.a. "Kareem Amer" online) to four years in prison — three years for blog posts that insulted Islam and one year for similar writings that defamed President Hosni Mubarak. While bloggers have been harrassed and a couple arrested by Mideast governments in the past, this is the first time one has been sentenced to prison. Before Kareem's arrest and conviction, internet writing was considered a safe and open venue for many young men and women in the region, a vehicle to freely express their opinions, doubts and misgivings about thorny issues in their tightly controlled societies. Kareem's blog posts would not have been that different. For example, he wrote about how he wanted to become a human rights lawyer working for the betterment of "Muslim and Arabic women." But his blog also condemned sacred Muslim rituals like fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. He mocked Islamic liturgies by saying "there is no God but the human being." He also posted his opinions on Coptic blogs — set up by the remnant of Egypt's pre-Islamic Christian community — which made him a target for accusations of heresy and apostasy. In November Kareem was detained, interrogated and held in an Alexandria jail without trial for two months before he was charged with spreading information disruptive of public order, incitement to hate Islam and defaming the president of the republic. The arrest had inspired rallies in support of Kareem around in Washington, Rome, Paris, London and Stockholm. [snip] The blogs act as a pain in the tooth for many Arab governments which fear citizens gaining the means to reveal their illegal and anti-democratic practices." Dismayed by Egypt's conviction of Kareem, Eid told TIME, "It is a gloomy day for all the advocates of freedom of expression not only in Egypt but also in the whole world." More at Time