ANSAmed reports, via an RSF press release:

CAIRO, NOVEMBER 20 - A young Egyptian sentenced to four years of imprisonment for an offence against Islam and against President Hosni Mubarak in his blog has been beaten in prison and put into an isolated cell, the organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced today.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a former law student, became in February this year the first case of a sentence in Egypt for having expressed on the Internet his opinions in eight articles written since 2004. RSF said that Suleiman had written in a letter from the prison that he was arrested, beaten and put into an isolated cell with scarce food and water. “I was subjected to a crude, non-humane and degrading treatment,” he denounced in a letter cited by the Paris-based organisation. RSF requested the release of Suleiman, known also as Kareem Amer, detained in the prison of Borg el Arab, near Alexandria. Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which represents Suleiman, affirms in a declaration that a prison guard and another prisoner have beaten the young person, knocking one of his teeth out. In one of the incriminated articles, Suleiman, a moderate Muslim, accused Azhar, the highest instance in Sunni Islam, of propagating extremism. Internet is one of the few means to express disagreement in Egypt, where almost all information organs are controlled by the Government and under a constant threat of repressions. Numerous journalists are on trial for having “offended” Mubarak, under poor health conditions, according to rumours. (ANSAmed).

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