Constantino Diaz-Duran, thank you so much for this piece.

Free Kareem Amer!

A great injustice is taking place today in a city that was once as cosmopolitan as our dear Manhattan. Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known as Kareem Amer, has been detained on and off for a year in Alexandria, Egypt, charged with a series of crimes that include “spreading information disruptive of public order,” “incitement to hate Muslims,” and “defaming the President of the Republic.”

As students at a world-renowned university, we have a platform that allows our voices to be heard. Kareem’s release is just the kind of cause we should use it for. It is morally imperative that Columbia students join in solidarity for this 22-year-old student, whose only real crime has been having the courage to speak his mind while living under a totalitarian government.

Kareem was first arrested on Oct. 26, 2005, following a long (and to some, blasphemous) blog post he wrote after the Maharram Beh Riot, a violent confrontation between Muslims and Coptic Christians. Having witnessed the violence, and what he called the “brutality, inhumanity, and thievery” of some of his fellow Muslims, Kareem wrote, “We should stand courageously and boldly against these teachings.” These are teachings, he continued, “that became a plague on humanity and are not supported except by extremists like [Osama] bin Laden, [Abu Musab] al Zarqawi, [Ayman] al Zawaheeri, and the thugs that assaulted our Coptic brothers, burned their homes, stole their properties, and tried to assault their religious men and destroy their churches.”

After Kareem’s release from jail a couple of weeks later, he seemed even more adamant in his fight: “It is very terrible that freedom would be taken from a human being because of an opinion or belief of his, but … it is very beautiful that his detention would be an encouragement for him to stick by his principles, and a reason for him to defy and hold on to what he thinks is right, even if he violates the traditions and beliefs of the majority of the people within the boundaries of his society.”

The controversy earned him a further honor. He was expelled from Al-Azhar University, one of the Islamic world’s premier higher-learning institutions. He studied law there, hoping to specialize in human rights. Incidentally, it should be mentioned that he has been one of the most outspoken supporters of women’s rights in the Arab blogosphere.

His expulsion did not dampen his criticisms of his society. He may find it harder now to become a lawyer, but he claims to be freer. “As I was being investigated, I discovered-for the first time-that being a student at Al-Azhar University means I was a slave, owned by it,” he said. “They were expecting me to deny or evade responsibility of my free and courageous opinions-they were waiting for me to give birth to a second personality during the investigations-but how preposterous!”

How brave, I say. The true magnitude of his words might be hard to grasp by someone who has always lived in a free society-and trust me, the U.S. is a free society, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney notwithstanding. Realizing that Hosni Mubarak has been the president of Egypt since before Kareem was even born might help us put things into perspective. Kareem has lived his entire life under the rule of one person, under the boot of the same totalitarian government. In his words, his arrest last year meant only that he was “moved from a big jail to a small disciplinary cell because [he] did not follow the rules that the 70 million Egyptians are forced to abide by, and [he] broke the widespread traditions of the Great Jail of the Arab Republic of Egypt.”

Kareem is now back in the “disciplinary cell.” He was arrested again on Nov. 6 and is being held at a detention center in Alexandria. It is not certain how much longer he will be held. Human rights organizations across the world, including Amnesty International, have protested his detention and expressed concern about the fact that he is being charged with religious crimes. He is a prisoner of conscience, jailed for having something that many of us need more of-guts.

An online petition has been established to collect signatures for Kareem’s release. But we should not stop at that. We have the resources to raise more awareness about this injustice, and we should put them to good use.

I would like to think that, as Americans and Columbians, we share Kareem’s commitment to freedom. Like Kareem, we believe that all men and women deserve equal protection under the law. Like Kareem, we believe that government and religion should never be mixed. Like Kareem, we have the energy that youth provides. Unlike Kareem, we are able to voice our opinions freely. Let us not abandon him in his fight for liberty.

The author is a student in the School of General Studies majoring in American studies.

Egypt arrests another blog critic-

Police in Cairo have detained a blogger whose posts have been critical of the Egyptian government.

ami Siyam, who blogs under the name of Ayyoub, was detained along with three friends after leaving the house of a fellow blogger late at night.

No reasons have been given for Mr Siyam’s detention. The other friends were released after being questioned.

Human rights groups have accused Egypt of eroding freedom of speech by arresting several bloggers recently.

BBC Arab Affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says blogging in Egypt is closely associated with political activism in a culture where democratic freedoms are severely restricted.

Anti-harassment protest in Cairo

In recent weeks, bloggers have been exposing what they say was the sexual harassment of women at night in downtown Cairo in full view of police who did not intervene.

Mr Siyam’s host on Saturday night, Muhammad Sharqawi, was detained for several weeks earlier this year.

The most recently detained blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil, was detained in Alexandria on 6 November and was charged with disrupting public order, inciting religious hatred and defaming the president.

Amnesty International says Mr Amer appeared to have been detained for expressing critical views about Islam and Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities.

We’d like to thank Tom Palmer for his continuous efforts to increase awareness on this case.

You can act to help free Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, who has been detained by the Egyptian authorities for writing on his blog. Regardless of whether you agree with his views or not (he is very critical of the Egyptian government and of Islam), please support his right to express his views peacefully. Please sign this petition for his release. It’s easy. If you want to do more, please write a respectful letter to the Egyptian Embassy in your country. Just a minute of your time can help a young man who should not be in prison. Please take that minute. And then ask at least one friend.

Please think of yourself in a prison cell and how much you would hope that others would act on your behalf.

Thank you Tom. This campaign is stronger because of your efforts.

FYI, Glenn Reynolds has also blogged about this.

Originally published at the Tharwa Community:

The Tharwa Community strongly denounces the arrest of Egyptian blogger Abdel Karim Suliman Amer, known as “Kareem Amer,” for expressing secular opinions on his blog. Kareem, a former student at Al-Azhar University, was illegally arrested in October 2005 by security forces due to opinions he expressed online regarding the sectarian violence in Alexandria that year.Egyptianblogger After his arrest and release, Al-Azhar Univeristy dismissed Kareem and filed a communiqué with the Office of the Public Prosecutor against Kareem. Despite the arguments of Kareem and a human rights lawyer from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information who was representing him, the prosecutor decided to detain Kareem again on November 6 for four days, on a renewable basis, pending an investigation.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

The Tharwa Community fully supports Kareem’s right to free speech, as we stand by all those brave enough to express their views, however controversial, in repressive societies.

We formally sponsor the petition drafted by the Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance (HAMSA) to release Kareem, and we ask all of our readers to express their solidarity with Kareem by signing this important document. We also encourage you to visit www.freekareem.org for more information on this matter.

Egyptian fear in the blogosphere -

Egypt has once again been cracking down on freedoms of expression in cyberspace and recently arrested a 22-year-old law student blogger, Abdol Karim, for being critical of Islam in his posts.

Mr Karim, known in the blogosphere as Kareem Amer, was detained on November 6 in his home city of Alexandria. A website has been set up to campaign for his release.

Amnesty International has been campaigning against online censorship and the jailing of bloggers around the world. Reporters Without Borders has responded to Mr Karim’s case with scathing criticism, and, at the weekend, a string of Egyptian human rights organisations condemned his incarceration.

According to reports, Mr Karim has been charged with several offences, including defaming the president of Egypt, incitement to overthrow the regime and incitement to hate Islam.

Alaa Abd el-Fatah, another blogger detained by the Egyptian authorities earlier this year, and later freed, says that the jailing of Mr Karim is much more troubling because he has been targeted for his religious views.

Reporters Without Borders says that earlier this year Mr Karim was expelled from his university, the Islamic University of al-Azhar for criticising the Egyptian government’s “religious and authoritarian excesses”.

Campaigners for Mr Karim have said it is particularly worrying that the university was involved in trying to stop Mr Karim’s blogging.