Last week, Metro Holland published an article on the case of Kareem and on the fact that now, for Egyptians and many others throughout the Arab world, the Internet is not the free marketplace of ideas it once was.

The author, Christian Derlagen, has kindly sent us the original Dutch article, accompanied by his English translation. His article is the first major publication on Kareem Amer’s case in Dutch.

Metro Holland has a daily production of over 500,000 copies, reaching around one million readers. Thank you, Christian!

You can view the original article on the sixth page of the February 28 edition of Metro Holland: Bloggen is misdaad in Egypte (PDF file).

(There is also a reference to the article on the front page.)

A screen shot: (click here for full-scale image)

English translation:

Metro Holland
Wednesday, 28 February 2007

Blogging is a crime in Egypt

For millions of people around the world, the weblog is their podium to express their ideas and opinions to the broader public. But on the internet, the freedom to write what you think does not exist everywhere.

An Egyptian court last week convicted the blogger Abdelkareem Suleiman to four years in prison for ‘insulting the president’ and ‘contempting islam’. After censorship over newspapers, radio and television, now the internet seems to become the new victim of Arab regimes’ desire to exercise full control over the media.

Worried
Though human rights organizations worldwide are worried about further limitations to freedom of speech in the Arab world, Suleiman could not count on too much support in his own country: “Someone who openly speaks out against islam, his life is not safe here.’

The 22-year old blogger, better known under his nickname Kareem Amer, wrote on his blog that president Mubarak’s government is ‘the perfect example of a dictatorial regime’. He labelled the prestigious Islamic Al-Azhar University, where he studied law, as ‘racist’. Consequently, the blogger was not only expelled from university, but the institution also filed a complaint with the Egyptian authorities. Amer is imprisoned in the Alexandria jail since his arrest, last November.

Sharia
The court ruling came as a slap in the face of Dalia Ziada, a 26-year old blogger and human rights activist of the Arabic Network for Human Rights in Cairo. “This means that we are not free what we want to say on our websites”, says Ziada, who followed the case from the beginning. “The judge is not independent and is under full control of the government. It is a terrible time for freedom of speech in Egypt.”
The reaction of Amer’s dad has also shocked her. A few days before the court session, he said in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper that his son, in line with the sharia, should be killed now he had fallen off his faith. Amer has also received hundreds of death threats in his electronic mailbox, because he would have insulted the prophet Mohammed with his criticism on Islam.

Censorship
Freedom of speech is under serious pressure, and not only in Egypt. Other Arab states too, such as Tunisia, Syria and Saudi-Arabia, censor newspapers, radio and television. Information that is critical on the ruling governments is blocked even before it is printed or broadcasted. Because the internet seemed to offer more freedom, there is now a large community of young, critical webloggers in the Arab world. But out of fear for the regimes’ security authorities, these bloggers usually do not reveal their real names. Amer was the exception to this rule.

With Kareem Amer’s verdict, the Egyptian government seems to give a warning: Egyptian should be careful with what they say, also in cyberspace. But bloggers in Egypt seem more resilient than ever when it comes to defending freedom of speech. As a colleague of Amer said after the ruling: “The government should not think that it has won and that I will stop saying what I think. I will not stop to criticize the government of president Mubarak and his regime, and I will also continue to reveal all human rights violations in Egypt.”

Christian Derlagen
Metro-reporter

He looks exhausted, doesn’t he?