A few weeks ago while we were still organizing worldwide rallies, we wrote about students at Roger Williams University and the event that they were hosting in support for Kareem.
The Phoenix now has a detailed account of how the rally went:
Last week, as many Americans were celebrating the victory of Barack Obama, Heather Klink and a group of her classmates at Roger Williams University staged a vigil to protest the continued imprisonment of the Egyptian blogger known as Kareem Amer.
Klink, a senior, says she learned about Amer’s case after taking PEN, a class taught by novelist Adam Braver in which students discuss the plight of imprisoned writers. As a result, some of her classmates and she launched a group, Pens of Peace, to agitate on the same issue.
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Klink says she was part of a group of about 14 students and 10 faculty members who staged a vigil at RWU last Thursday on Amer’s behalf.
“It is the kind of case that everyone should be interested in,” she tells me, “especially students,” since Amer was 22 when he was arrested. As a creative writing major, Klink says, the prospect of being imprisoned for writing something “really hits close to home for me, as it should for all students here.”
Klink says Pens for Peace has focused on trying to raise awareness about Amer’s case, to get more people involved, and that it plans next semester to try to involve some of Rhode Island’s elected officials. Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, so human-rights activists hope that increased pressure could have an impact.
“My concern is that by imprisoning Kareem Amer, they’re setting an example,” Klink says, and if this goes unchallenged, it will have negative consequences for free speech in Egypt and possibly elsewhere.
We thank all the students and faculty at Roger Williams University for getting involved and spreading awareness about what Kareem is going through.
