In a New York Times article about Wikipedia’s use in Alexandria, Egypt, Noam Cohen writes:

Hanging over the event is the question of Internet freedom in Egypt. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and a bit of a rock star at these conferences, gave a talk about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in the past, he said, largely involved freedom of the press; today, however, with blogs and collaborative projects like Wikipedia, freedom of speech was much more personal.

His talk linked the growth of Wikipedia to a culture of freedom, and, at least indirectly was indicating that Arabic Wikipedia may be hampered by such restrictions. “It is hard to measure the impact of arresting bloggers, as has happened here in Egypt,” he said. He was referring to the case of Abdel Kareem Nabil, a former student at Al Azhar University, was sentenced in 2007 to three years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife, and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Wales said there was no doubt that such arrests had an indirect impact, making the general public more leery of contributing to projects like Wikipedia.

“Kareem Amer,” he said, using the arrested blogger’s pen name, “has become a cause around the world.” He then showed Mr. Nabil’s English Wikipedia page. “Not the best strategy for keeping his ideas out of the public eye.”

You can read the full article here.