We are very happy to announce our new eCard system for the Free Kareem campaign. We believe that such a service might help us keep people aware and informed about Kareem’s unfortunate case. It deserves to be remembered.
Please help out by sending a card. [What you see in the main page is thumbnails, click on each image for an enlarged and original version.]
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Dr. Abu Khoula writes on Elaph, a leading Arab liberal news Web site, an open letter to President Mubarak: A Call for President Mubarak to Free Abdul Kareem (In Arabic).
In his previous article on Kareem, Dr. Abu Khoula predicted that this case will tarnish the reputation of Al-Azhar University, as well as Egypt’s educational system and judicial branch. His letter goes on to explain how his predictions were correct due to the global outrage worldwide. For example, Amnesty International had set up a Web page to collect letters in support for Kareem, and UN Watch has brought up Kareem’s case several times. He bolsters his argument further by reminding President Mubarak that Kareem was awarded a 2007 Index on Censorship Award.
Furthermore, Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim assured the writer that the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies is determined to defend Kareem during the upcoming months, for his case is another case for freedom of opinion.
On such bases, Dr Abu Khoula hopes that the President of Egypt could pardon Kareem and end the injustice he is facing from Al-Azhar University.
(Correction: While Reporters Without Borders overwhelmingly supports Kareem, the article is incorrect to say that this Web site is set up by them. We are not affiliated with any organization.)
And our recent video explains why not -
We ask our readers and supporters now to please help us by creating short (and respectful) videos asking for Kareem’s release. Direct your message to president Mubarak. Please send us your videos through comments or by e-mail – 
Here is one from Nasser, who recently joined our team as a PR director, to start with:
The Free Kareem Coalition strongly objects to the election of Egypt to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on May 17, with 168 votes out of the 192-member General Assembly. The Human Rights Council was formed to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission last year, but the election of countries who themselves abuse human rights should give everyone serious concerns about the legitimacy of the council and its effectiveness to truly help those in need.
A coalition of human-rights groups opposed the election of Egypt, as well as Angola and Qatar (who won appointments) and Belarus (which lost). Before the vote, UN Watch appealed to the countries to release their political prisoners now, lest the watchdog group oppose their candidacies:
“Election to the Council is supposed to be based on the candidate’s ‘contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights and [its] voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto,’ according to the Council’s founding document, General Assembly Resolution 60/251. Once it is a Council member, a country is supposed to ‘uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights’ and ‘fully cooperate with the Council.’”
To elect a country that imprisons bloggers and others simply for exercising their fundamental right of free speech is wrong. However, actions such as the Human Rights Council vote also may embolden that country to continue its crackdowns, as now it has been given legitimacy on the human-rights front in an international forum. And as we know, Egypt was emboldened to begin with as they successfully prosecuted and imprisoned Kareem, then indicated further crackdowns were to come in the verdict’s wake.
Considering the number of votes that Egypt received for its appointment, we also express concern about how many member states are truly educated about the human-rights situation in the country and ask that U.N. members give the issue of Kareem and other political prisoners high priority in future votes.
If you would like to help us out, the best way to do it is to keep spreading awareness. Now you can do so via an e-Card. Please take a few minutes to send one to a friend or colleague and link them to this site for updates and information.
Free Kareem ePostcards! (Yes, we are working on a better feature for this, one which we can permanently embed on the site. Keep your eyes open, it should be here within a week if we manage to figure this out.)
“I am a Muslim and I am proud of this. However, I will never agree with your shameful practices against my friend Kareem Amer. Clear?” – Dalia Ziada
Dalia Ziada is a human rights activist and translator based in Cairo. She has been one of the most supportive of Kareem’s friends during his difficult times.
Dalia has recently learnt that a poem she wrote in support of Kareem has caught the attention of Egypt’s State Security Service. Consequently, her blog is currently among the 50 Web sites Kareem Amer’s appeals judge wants to be banned from Internet users in Egypt. (Learn more about this from HRINFO).
Despite being a devout Muslim, Dalia is being accused of contempting religion because of her poetry. So far, it seems they are only interested in blocking her blog. However, if the claim is transferred to a criminal court, she may be handed a minimum sentence of three years. The judge is also trying to have her Tharwa_Egypt Web site down because of a published article she co-wrote in support of Kareem.
Quite frankly, this campaign would have progressed little were it not for her efforts. In fact, it was Dalia arranged for Kareem Amer to have a lawyer accompany him to the prosecutor’s office last year. It was Dalia who helped us get in touch with Kareem’s lawyers. It’s Dalia who publicly expressed support for Kareem several times (for example, here, here, and here), and she verified our translations of his writings for the world to read.
It is due to this poem that Kareem’s appeals judge is getting her into trouble – she did nothing libelous or defamatory and was simply trying to assuage a friend while he was in prison.
Dalia: If something happens to you, the entire world is going to rebel against it, and we are willing to do everything in our power to ensure this fact. Our main mission would be to help you and Kareem.
Because Kareem was jailed without the authorities facing any consequences, they clearly feel they have the power to now silence more people they disagree with. This is why we need Kareem freed. He is a symbol for our liberty. As the saying goes, the only way evil will prevail is if good people do nothing. If the world remains silent, it will cost us dearly. Our silence would be a peaceful consent to the Egyptian government’s actions.
If you wish to express support for Dalia, please leave a comment on her blog. Let’s show the judge that we’re not going to allow anything to happen to our friend!
For further information on why Dalia is supporting Kareem, read an interview we conducted with her here.
The United Nations refused to approve the distribution of the above flier to avoid offending the Egyptian government! (Click on the image to enlarge.)
On World Press Freedom Day (May 3), a panel was hosted by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations that was to discuss issues related to Internet journalism, blogging as tools for free speech, and the difficulties bloggers in repressive states face. Nation/world news columnist Bridget Johnson (also the Free Kareem team’s consultant!) wrote on her experiences on that day as a moderator of the panel: Bloggers key in battle for press freedom.
I was asked to moderate a panel on the U.N. trip to bring attention to these very issues. Hosted by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations last Thursday, the panel included Jeffrey Krilla (deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the State Department), Watson Meng (founder of China’s Boxun News), Frank Xie (Boxun blogger), Egyptian blogger Nora Younis and Tala Dowlatshahi from Reporters Without Borders. Live blogging captured the presentation of various views on how to protect bloggers’ free speech around the globe.
Interestingly, the event itself faced censorship. Fliers advertising the panel featured a woman with duct tape over her mouth sitting at a laptop computer, on which was superimposed a news brief about the imprisonment of blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman – datelined, of course, Egypt.
Carolyn Vadino, deputy spokeswoman at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said that the ambassador’s office was asked by U.N. officials to remove the Egypt dateline from the image if they wanted the fliers approved for posting. So after the U.S. refused to censor the flier, U.N. officials responded they could only approve fliers for “cultural events.”
The purported reason for the initial denial was that a member state was supposedly singled out. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and throws young bloggers in prison for dissing Hosni Mubarak, though, one wonders how the usage of the country’s name could be deemed unfair.
After the U.N. event, some of us hit the road to take the panel to Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. Here I sat down for an interview with Al-Jazeera, and was asked why American students in a small town such as this should be concerned about a blogger in danger halfway around the world.
Simple: The greatest appreciation we can show for our freedoms is the willingness to help others trying to attain the same. Many argue that the U.S. would not have won the revolution if it weren’t for the financial aid of a young, idealistic Frenchman who fought for America’s liberty, the Marquis de Lafayette. It was a cause he should have cared little about, hanging around the privileged halls of Versailles, but the fact that he saw beyond his little corner of the world shaped the course of history. “Humanity has won its battle,” Lafayette wrote shortly after the Battle of Yorktown. “Liberty now has a country.”
It’s unbelievable that the United Nations, which is viewed as a legitimate international body that embraces human rights and steps up to protect them, would be so craven to prevent the distribution of fliers that just state an absolute truth: That a blogger was jailed to four years for his views!
Kareem’s pro bono lawyers have submitted a cassation file for him: Revocation of Karim Amer’s verdict: Last chance for justice.
They point out to the following reasons why the verdict should be challenged:
• The verdict was based on the complaints and testimonials of Al-Azhar University’s suspected disciplinary board
• The court failed to identify the basic factors of the crime of profiting by religion to publish radical concepts, stipulated in Article 98
• The court applied a term doesn’t exist in the law
• The two verdicts violated the right to defense, by refusing to resolve in the defense team’s basic demands and holding back the suit discarding the defense’s verbal pleading in the first sessions
