This is a strong message to Egypt’s bloggosphere.
In a first trial against a blogger, Kareem has been sentenced to four years in jail for insulting Islamic institutions and the President.
A very sad day for freedom of expression in Egypt.
In a first trial against a blogger, Kareem has been sentenced to four years in jail for insulting Islamic institutions and the President.
A very sad day for freedom of expression in Egypt.
[…] Richter, writing for The Arabist, echoes similar sentiments: This is a strong message to Egypt’s bloggosphere. In a first trial against a blogger, Kareem […]
It is NOT a sad day for freedom of expression in Egypt.
It is, rather, an all too ordinarily normal day for FoE in Egypt.
I am not able to find what he said precisely.
Could someone post me a link to an overview of his views in English?
Moritz
How many bloggers are there in Egypt? Rough estimate anyone?
Probably in the thousands…the question is how many prominent and politically-based bloggers there are. Probably a smaller number but still difficult to estimate.
BBC and other news sources put the number at 6000, I’m sure Alaa has more details over at Omraneya.net
It’s unfortunate. Let’s brace ourselves, it’s starting to look a little like the end of Sadat’s reign.
There is an easy (well, sort of) answer to this kind of state repression. It is called civil disobedience. And it is basically what Abdel Karim was doing, although he may not have thought of it as such.
If Egyptians want the government to cut this crap out, someone needs to start a campaign to get every Egyptian with an internet connection to start a blog. Identify themselves by name, and then start insulting the heck out of the president. If you could even get just 500-1000 people to do it, I’m reasonably certain the government would have to cave in.
Now, the islam insults are a bit harder, since you’re not going to be able to get as many people onboard, and with sectarian tensions some people might blame copts, etc. But for the insulting the regime charges this should work like a charm. The trick is to find people courageous enough to do it and risk jail time. Because at least some of those 500-1000 will get jail time, as did many of Martin Luther King’s supporters.
Good luck Abdel Karim, and everyone else.
Unfortunately not only in Egipt.
In Portugal too…
António Caldeira (http://doportugalprofundo.blogspot.com/) who last year won a process in a trial, is now facing 49 charges with a (Theoretical) 32 years sentence. Due to have publicated “classified” material regarding a State Minister accused of Paedophily, this minister was recentely “Accuited” due to “Formal” flaws in the accusation process.
The most obnoxious thing is that all the “classified” material had been publicated in newspapers before being on the blog, but no accusation was ever made to the media.
Like in Egypt, Portugal send also a strong message to his bloggosphere
I’ve skimmed the MB site and haven’t come across any statement on Kareem’s case. Lots of condemnations of Azhar students locked up, amidst the usual cries for freedom and democracy that are their hallmark these days, but silence on Kareem. A skim of the Ikhwan blogs, ditto. Has anyone seen anything?
If they refuse to speak up – shame on them – they’ve asked those of us who don’t share their ideology to respect their freedom of expression but haven’t stood up for the freedom of expression of someone who criticised religion. I’d like to hear Abdel Moneim Abul Futouh stand up for the rights of infidels in a democracy the way he did at the AUC panel the other day. They’ll find it difficult to build alliances if they continue in this vein.
SP,
Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, perhaps the most prominent Ikhwan blogger since he is the webmaster of their English site, has two posts on his English blog, quoting Abu Aardvark and Helena Cobban (to make a point about people not caring about Ikhwan prisoners.
However there is nothing but ikhwan news at his other blog:
http://ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com/
[This comment was edited]
Yeah, I saw the Helena Cobban etc articles cited in the English language cites, but was looking for an actual statement by the Ikhwan, and figured there’d be more actual discussion of the Kareem case over at the Arabic sites so focused more on those. There was zilch.