In addition to U.S. Congressman Trent Franks’ response to the Egyptian Embassy’s letter to The Washington Post, Constantino Diaz-Duran, our New York Coordinator, had his response published.

The letter is unavailable online; we have provided a scanned image of the letter from the paper:

The Quality of Freedom in Egypt

I was happy to read the March 5 letter from Karim Haggag, press attache at the Egyptian Embassy, regarding the jailing of 22-year-old blogger Abdel Karim Soliman. Mr. Haggag is certainly right when he says the judicial process in Egypt includes the right to appeal. In fact, Mr. Soliman’s lawyers have filed an appeal, which will be heard on Monday.

Mr. Haggag’s assertion that freedom of speech is safeguarded in Egypt’s constitution and that government decisions are regularly overturned gives us hope that his government will correct this gross mistake.

CONSTANTINO DIAZ-DURAN
Coordinator, Free Kareem Coalition
New York

UPDATE (March 23):
Apparently, the letter made it onto The Washington Post website after all: The Quality of Freedom in Egypt.