Just recently, Ana Ikhwan blogger Abdul Mon’em Mahmoud, who has previously expressed solidarity for Kareem, was arrested and is being held for at least two weeks pending an investigation. The Egyptian government is not taking lightly his blogging on security officials’ acts of torture, as well as random detentions suffered by Egyptians.

The Free Kareem Coalition expresses its deep concern for the detention of Abdul Mon’em and hopes for his release. A Web site has been set up campaigning for his freedom: الحرية لعبد المنعم (Arabic).

Reporters Without Borders weighs in:

Call for release of blogger who reports on torture of detainees

Voicing concern about increasingly repressive policies towards online dissent, Reporters Without Borders called today for the release of blogger Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who was arrested on 14 April at Cairo airport. He has been charged with membership of an “illegal organisation” (the Muslim Brotherhood), but his arrests seems to be linked to the photos and reports about the torture of detainees that he has posted on line.

“This arrest comes two months after another blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, was sentenced to four years in prison,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These two young men hold very different views, but they have a common desire to denounce President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarianism and the constant human rights violations in Egypt. We hope the authorities will free them and undertake to respect the principle of the free flow of information online.”

The state prosecutor’s office in Shoubra Al-Khaima ordered that Mahmud should be held for at least two weeks while he is investigated for alleged membership and financing of an illegal movement. Many local sources say he has in fact been targeted for reporting arbitrary arrests and acts of torture by the security services on his blog, Ana Ikhwan, and on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website.

Mahmud covered demonstrations organised by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and circulated photos of police brutality on the Internet. Aged 27 and a journalism graduate of Cairo university, he is also a correspondent for the satellite TV station Al-Hiwar (The dialogue).

Suleiman, who is better known by his blogger pseudonym of “Kareem Amer”, was arrested on 6 November 2006 because of articles he had posted on his blog, in which he often condemned the government’s authoritarian excesses and criticised Egypt’s highest religious institutions, especially the Sunni university of Al-Azhar, where he studied law. He was sentenced on 22 February to three years in prison for “inciting hatred of Islam” and one year for “insulting” the president.

Egypt is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “13 Internet Enemies”. Read our weekly “blog review” and create your blog with Reporters without borders : www.rsfblog.org

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information: The Police Broke into a Journalist Blogger’s Residence Anxieties for a Torture Crime

Cairo On 14 April 2007

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information HRinfo expresses anxiety and fear for the life of the journalist blogger Abdel Men’em Mahmoud, in which on Friday dawn security forces in Alexandria broke into his residence to arrest him. The incident is a result to a campaign practiced by the police in Cairo and Alexandria to arrest 42 Egyptians suspected of belonging to the Muslim Brothers Group.

Security forces on Friday Dawn, broke into the residence of Abdel Men’em Mahmoud reporter of Al-Hiwar TV and administrator of the celebrate blog “Ana Ikhwan”
(http://ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com) to arrest him. However, Mahmoud was not home at this hour, and because he was tortured in a previous episode for 13 days before, he disappeared to make sure of the reasons for this campaign, which probably could be his activities in media coverage to police quelling practices against Muslim Brothers’ activists.

On the other hand, the 27 years old blogger Abdel Men’em Mahmoud has expressed to a friend his haziness between subjecting to torture similarly to 2003 incident
(” http://ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com/2007/01/25.html) and fearing of terrifying his aged parents by the police to force him to surrender. However, he received news of the large number of armed forced broke into.

In light of HRinfo’s condemnation to “Dawn Visitors” system practiced by security forces which, was practiced on a wide range previously against political opposition, it calls upon the Minister of Interior and the General - Prosecutor to provide reasons for this new incident.
However, the blogger is not a student or a member in what the Interior Ministry claims of a sport show held by some Muslim Brothers’ students to be a “military training” and his activities is concentrated on media and writing on his blog.

Moreover, HRinfo calls upon all civil society organizations and independent media to join forces to stop the unjust campaign against activist, students and academics did not practice any wrong just adopting different ideas, which is a guaranteed right to all.

In another occasion, HRinfo invites bloggers, journalists and activists to join forces with the assembly organized today at 5 pm before Journalists’ Syndicate, by bloggers carrying computers’ “keyboards” to declare their denial to arresting bloggers and join forces with Abdel Men’em Mahmoud the journalist blogger.

Share This