Today, the 16th of November, is what the UN considers the “International Day of Tolerance.”

We welcome the Egyptian government to embrace this day by showing respect for freedom of speech and having tolerance for anyone who holds a different opinion or believes in a different faith (or chooses not to believe in anything at all.) Both of these factors are essential in any democracy, which Egypt should not dare call itself should it continue carrying out its human rights abuses.

How does Egypt define religious tolerance and human rights? Because the Baha’i faith is still unrecognized within Egypt. The Egyptian Baha’i minority lack the most basic rights because they cannot officially get their ID cards, the key to civil life in Egypt. As for human rights, people like Kareem are still in prison simply for expressing their personal opinions. Kareem’s 4 year sentence violates every definition of tolerance, free speech and democracy.

Is this really how Egypt wants to be viewed by the world?

Is this really what Egypt wants to put its citizens through?

Will Egypt admit that it’s operating under a merciless dictatorship?

When will Egypt correct these grave mistakes?

RSF – Jailed blogger singled out for mistreatment, lawyers say in complaint:

Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the state of health of jailed blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman and said it supported the complaint which his three lawyers filed yesterday accusing a prison official, identified as Medhat Samir, of conspiring to have him mistreated and held him in solitary confinement.

Better known by the blog name of “Kareem Amer,” Suleiman has been held in Borg Al Arab prison near Alexandria since his arrest on 6 November 2006.

“We support this initiative by Kareem Amer’s lawyers and we call for his release,” Reporters Without Borders said. “He was unjustly convicted for criticising the Mubarak government’s religious and authoritarian excesses in his blog. He has now been held in bad condition for more than a year . We think he has served enough of this sentence.”

In his letters, Suleiman is referring to the “physical and moral” torture to which he is being subjected. He said he was “handcuffed and beaten” and then thrown into an isolation cell, where he was given hardly any food or water. “I have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” he said.

Read the rest.

Today, the 15th of November, is the day the PEN organization dedicates to writers in prison all over the world:

Once a year, on 15 November, PEN stages its Day of the Imprisoned Writer where its membership of writers use their combined force to work towards change.

PEN has a profile of Kareem. He is also considered an Honarary Member of English PEN. On the 7th of November, PEN also published a press release to promote the worldwide rallies as well as to condemn his unjust sentence.

On this day we would like the world to remember the injustice that Kareem is being put through, merely for writing his personal opinions on his blog.

Many thanks to the Center for Institutional Analysis and Development (CADI) in Romania who made the Bucharest rally possible. Here are some pictures of the rally followed by a great description from Olga Nicoara, one of the core organizers:

These pictures were taken from Belodvin’s blog:

Flyer used to promote the rally:

Message from Olga:

Dear Friends of the Freedom of Speech/Friends of Kareem,

I am writing to inform you about the Bucharest FREE KAREEM rally, organized by CADI on November 9th, from 12 to 14 pm in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania.

We are thankful to the 17 people who gathered with us for the “Protest of Silence” meant to show solidarity with Kareem Amer, the young Egyptian student imprisoned for blogging his opinions on the Egyptian state and the Muslim religion.

CADI presented the message and arguments of the Silent Protesters in a memorandum also undersigned by Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience, Association Liberalism.ro and CISED and delivered it to the Egyptian Ambassador in Bucharest.

Upon arrival on site, the Egyptian Ambassador kindly invited us inside to discuss the problem. For an hour, Horia Terpe, Executive Director of CADI and myself expressed our concerns to the Egyptian Ambassador to Bucharest, Fawzi Mohamed El-Said Gohar. To the best of my memory, this is how I would structure my recollection of the Ambassador’s in reply:

- Kareem has brought a personal and public offense to President Hosni Mubarak – an act evaluated as being a serious crime under the Egyptian civil laws.

- Kareem also committed crime when he criticized Islam on his blog. An offense brought to the Muslim religion and its icons is an open offense to all the Egyptian Muslims and a violation of their rights. As such, Kareem’s actions escape punishment by the Court.

- Kareem also stated falsehood. There are no conflicts between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

- Egypt is a sovereign state; therefore no outsider has the right to interfere with its laws, religion, public issues, policies, court decisions, etc.

- Nor should they have an interest. We Romanians should be for example concerned about our crowded streets and advocate for better traffic control.

- No one in Egypt or anywhere else is justified to criticize a certain policy or a court decision issued by an Egyptian justice or. Instead, individuals and NGOs have the option to promote legislative change through other means such as party politics.

- Complete freedom of expression would cause total chaos, and social nightmare. The Egyptian lawmakers specifically design limitations/regulations in order to protect the citizens against themselves. Abusive free expression attacks persons and religion.

- There is no doubt regarding the correctness in the judges’ decision as far as Kareem’s case is concerned. Egyptian judge nor can be suspected of corruption.

- CADI’s own act of pressuring is unjustified as we lack sufficient information regarding Kareem’s case. We ought to do more research on Egyptian legislation and Islam and reflect upon it much longer.

At the end of the conversation, His Excellency promised to pass on our message to Cairo and assured us of his openness to discussions in any future event of this kind. We thank him in return – hoping that we made some difference in the direction we sought – and leave you to reflect on this piece of debate that stands behind Egypt’s act.

We shall continue to militate for Kareem and everyone’s right to express their beliefs.

The Coalition will respond to the ambassador’s claims in another post; in the meantime we would like to thank CADI for making their voices heard concerning the grave injustices that Kareem is being put through simply for speaking his mind.

The Jerusalem Post, via the AP:

Lawyers for a jailed Egyptian blogger have filed a complaint with the prosecutor-general’s office alleging their client is being held in solitary confinement and tortured in prison.

Lawyers with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and Hisham Mubarak Centre for Law demanded in the complaint, filed this week, that the prosecutor-general investigate the alleged abuses against their client, Abdel Kareem Nabil, who was sentenced in February to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Nabil, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, is a 22-year-old former student at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University who was a vocal secularist and sharp critic of conservative Muslims in his blog. His writings often lashed out at Al-Azhar – the most prominent religious center for Sunni Islam.

Via Alexandra Sandels:

CAIRO: In yet another case of alleged torture and police brutality, imprisoned blogger Kareem Amer claims in a letter he wrote to his lawyers to have been severely beaten and tortured by an inmate and a guard in Borg Al-Arab prison outside Alexandria.

His lawyers from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo) argue that Amer was beaten and then transferred to solitary confinement where he was placed in shackles and again assaulted. One of his teeth was broken, they said.

The organization reiterated in a press release that the incident was ordered and supervised by a prison investigation officer.

“Kareem was beaten badly and tortured for two days [starting] Oct. 24. He was prevented by prison officers from sending out letters to tell anyone about what happened. Only when he sent a letter to us through one of his inmates did we find out,” Amer’s lawyer Gamal Eid, from HRInfo, told Daily News Egypt.

Furthermore, Eid stressed that Amer was prohibited from undergoing a medical examination.

The alleged maltreatment was reportedly a result of the blogger uncovering a scandal in the prison involving money, Eid continued.

According to HRInfo, the battery took place inside ward Number 22 in front of a prison investigation officer and later continued in the solitary cell where Amer was handcuffed.

“If you tell, we will do this to you again,” the perpetrators allegedly warned Amer after the beatings, Eid added.

Representatives from HRInfo and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center are demanding an immediate investigation into the case, which they refer to as a breach of international treaties. Egypt is a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Anti-Torture Treaty.

The organizations are asking to have Amer transferred to a safer prison facility “where his rights as a prisoner might be respected.”

Amer was sentenced to four years in prison in February this year for defaming President Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his Internet blog. The case marks the first time Egypt refers a blogger to prison. His imprisonment has sparked outrage among international rights groups and has attracted much unwanted attention to the Egyptian government.

On Friday, activists staged demonstrations outside Egyptian embassies in several cities around the world to mark the passage of one year since Amer’s detainment.

Many thanks to the great efforts of Debi Chakrabarty, James Pugh, and to everyone who showed up to this rally in London! Pictures below, followed by an article detailing the event.

Article by Debi Chakrabarty, the rally’s organizer, and Paul Gunn:

I send this ‘report’ with a very heavy heart…while all the participants would agree that the London rally was relatively ‘successful’, we are all tremendously saddened by recent news that Kareem is being physically tortured in prison. Of course, this strengthens our resolve, and makes us hope, even more fervently, that Kareem is freed soon.

The weather may have been cold on Friday afternoon, but the embassy officials were anything but. Although they did close the blinds to the reception area on the ground floor after about 20 minutes, they continued to observe the rally from various windows located on upper floors. Many of them were seen smiling and waving at us from these windows. In fact, some of the male embassy officials seemed to be winking at the (rather attractive) female protesters, which we found more than a little bit odd.

Different individuals, in various parts of the building (and on the street) took numerous pictures of us, from every imaginable angle. We also noticed that there were several security cameras mounted on the front of the Embassy. (I hope that none of the rally participants were hoping to visit Egypt soon!)

Representatives from the London School of Economics, University College London (thank you, Oliver!), the Oxford Hayek Society (thank you, Andrew!), Queen Mary, University of London (thank you, Paul!), IPN (thank you, Caroline!), Amnesty International (LSE student chapter – thank you for helping us publicize the rally!), and the freelance journalism/blogging community (thank you, Helen!) were present.

Other individuals who could not make it to the rally (including representatives from IEA and King’s College, London) assured me that they would be participating in the campaign by writing letters, signing petitions, donating money, and doing whatever else they could to help Kareem regain his freedom.

The first 40 minutes passed without incident – we chanted “Free Kareem!” every time an official entered or exited the building, with little to no response. A few officials walked out and picked up copies of leaflets detailing the media coverage that we had brought along. Pedestrian traffic on the street was minimal, but the few people who did walk by seemed intrigued by our presence. Some asked for some more literature about the case, which we handed out. A few toddlers looked inquisitively at their mothers for clues about what was going on. One of the most memorable moments occurred when a young [presumably] Muslim woman (wearing a hijab) approached us, smiled timidly, made a “thumbs up” sign with both hands, and quietly walked away. We were fairly sure that she knew exactly who Kareem was and why we were there.

After about 40 minutes in the cold (at which point I had to assure the lady to my left that she was not suffering from frost bite… yet), one of the embassy officials – wearing an eye-catching fighter-jet pin on his jacket collar – approached us and asked: “Who is Kareem? Do you know what he wrote? Do you know why he was imprisoned?”

Our IPN representative launched into an eloquent and respectful explanation of what Kareem had written, why we were protesting his imprisonment, and why it would make sense for the Egyptian government to correct the mistake that they had made. The official’s responses were varied and, at times, mind-boggling. At one point, he explained that insulting Islam is a grave sin in Egyptian/Islamic culture (which, he assured us, we could not understand in the secular West), and that accordingly, individuals (especially the young) deserve punishment for disrespectful actions/words. He also claimed that criticism of the President is acceptable, as long as it is civil and as long as the President is allowed to respond to his critics. This left many participants in the rally wondering about how many times President Bush was allowed to ‘respond’ to his rather ‘uncivil’ critics. But we restrained ourselves and decided not to bring America into the debate, which was probably wise. Instead, we responded to these arguments with variations of the phrase that Andrew (from Oxford) had written on his placard: “Criticism is not a Crime!”

What was most galling about his position was his cultural relativism, and his denial of fundamental rights for all people in all places. He seemed to suggest that just as British culture condones the wearing of eye-catchingly short skirts (something that he said he found “offensive”), Egyptian culture condones the punishment of those unlucky enough to be caught saying the wrong thing – and that we ought to ‘tolerate’ that in the way that he tolerated mini-skirt-wearing women in London. We countered the official’s arguments as respectfully as possible, but our protestations that many Egyptians and Muslims supported Kareem’s cause fell on deaf ears. We gently reminded him that Egypt had signed the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, and that article 19 (section 2) of this covenant stated, rather unequivocally: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”. We told him that the international community, as a result, was watching Egypt’s conduct with a critical eye – but he seemed unfazed.

Nonetheless, the official promised us that he would return to his office, read Kareem’s blog again and would consider the issue more fully. We thanked him repeatedly for coming out to speak to us, and we continue to hope that the arguments we made will help influence him and his colleagues to reconsider their position on the case.

The police, who were extremely helpful, were especially impressed at how “well-behaved” we were, and said that they had never seen an official come out to converse with protesters before. In the words of one of the officers, “it must have been the lack of intimidation that invited the embassy official to come down and speak to you. That is the only time that anyone I have spoke to have ever known that to happen.”

We got a piece placed in the LSE student paper (thank you, James!), some coverage on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’, as well as some interest from a Guardian reporter for a follow-up piece. All in all, a satisfactory rally, but as recent reports from Kareem’s lawyers reminds us, this battle is far from won…

Via the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (through HRINFO’s previously noted press release):

Since he was imprisoned, Karim has been subjected to systemic discrimination and mistreatment by Borg Alarb prison’s officers. He told his lawyer that the mistreatment is always coupled with the phrase, “This is until you change your mind!” This represents a threat to his life and compounds the difficulty of the already harsh sentence. The two organisations are calling for his transfer to another prison, where he can receive more humanitarian treatment and where his rights as a prisoner will be respected.

If you wish to contact Gamal Eid, executive director of HRINFO, for further information, you may do so through e-mail: info(at)hrinfo.net or gamal4eid(at)yahoo.com

Thanks to Lamis Khalilova, board of directors of Amnesty Czech, for making this rally possible!

According to Lamis, “we were invited into the embassy and were given the opportunity to voice our concerns over Kareem’s case and freedom of speech and expression in Egypt.”

Here are some pictures of Friday’s rally!

Thanks to Amnesty International at the Czech Republic and to everyone else who participated in this rally!

Much thanks to the efforts of Pedro Sette and Magno Karl for making this rally possible in Brazil! And special thanks to everybody who showed up.

Here are some pictures!

Watch the video!

Thanks again to Pedro, Diogo, and Magno for putting together a great rally.