Unfortunately, the other Free Kareem groups are not committed enough to post consistent updates. For this purpose, we have decided to create another Free Kareem group, one that serves as the official Facebook group of the Free Kareem campaign.
So if you expect updates, rally information, notifications of new initiatives concerning Kareem, please disregard the outdated Facebook groups for Kareem and add this one instead.
Below are some photos of the rally that took place in Washington DC in defense of Kareem on the 22nd of February. This is the fourth rally to take place for Kareem in Washington!
Big thanks to Jonathan Blanks for the photos and for making much of this possible! And thanks to everyone who made it through despite the uncooperative weather.
Marshall Kirkpatrick of the Read Write Web blog includes Kareem in a new entry today that covers the shutting down of “Think Secret:”
Another college student named Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman is spending years in an Egyptian prison for blogging critically about Islam and the government he was born under. Another Egyptian, Wael Abbas, is presumably living his life on the run and had his YouTube account erased by Google after years of documenting government torture there.
Free speech and investigative journalism are of the utmost importance and none of these new media scribes deserve the treatment they are recieving. All of them, and many others, deserve our vehement support.
For those of you who speak French, NewsLab recently featured a blog post on Kareem:
Karim Amer 24 ans un blogueur Egyptien ne a Alexandrie ,un ex-étudiant d’Alazhar La plus grande université religieuse en Egypte .Karim a été virée de sa famille et de son université ,condamne de 4 ans en prison a cause de ce qu’il a écrit dans son blog. Inspiré par le blog d’une femme Egyptienne Le jeune homme a commence son blog en 2005.Amer très timide mais ses idées , ses mots forts ne donne pas l’impression d’une personnalité si timide que tu peux l’entend a peine en parlant .Le blogeuer avec son tres belle écriture en Arabe ,il a commence a écrire son point de vue sur plusieurs sujets .Il a critiqué le régime gouvernant en Egypte et son président ,il a critique Alazhar qui etait pour un prison avec des directeurs intolérants.
Un feminist qui a défendu les droits de la femme , et dans son blog il a mis le signe “stop violence against women” .Karim a ete arrête la première fois en octobre 2005 après avoir critique le comportement des musulmans dans un conflit violent entre les musulmans et les chrétiens a Alexandrie.Amer a reste en prison pour 1 mois a peu près dont il a rencontre beaucoup des prisonnier de politique .La deuxième fois le jeune blogeur a été arrête en novembre 2006 , et il reste 4 mois c’est le temps de son procès .en Février 2007 les juges ont trouve Amer coupable et il a été envoye a 4 ans en prison un ans pour insulter le président Egyptien et 3 ans our avoire insulte l’Islam.Amer est dans le prison de Borg Al Arab 20 Km hors D’Alexendrie .Avec les criminels il passé un temps très dure ,et en octobre dernier le jeune home a ete torture par un des officier mais Karim a réussi a envoye une lettre en racontant tous ce qu’il lui a arrive .Un enquête a été ouvert pour cette violation .www.freekareem.org
Portuguese translation of our latest press release. Thanks Andrew!
CONFIRMADA PENA DE PRISÃO PARA BLOGGER EGÍPCIO
12 de Março de 2007NOVA IORQUE— A Free Kareem Coalition lamenta a decisão do tribunal de recurso egípcio de confirmar a pena de prisão de quatro anos a que foi condenado em Fevereiro Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman, mais conhecido por Kareem Amer, por criticar o governo egípcio e condenar o extremismo islâmico. Solicitamos ao presidente egípcio Hosni Mubarak que indulte Kareem assim que possível.
De acordo com o coordenador de Nova Iorque da Free Kareem Coalition, Constantino Diaz-Duran, “o prolongamento do encarceramento de Kareem vai servir apenas para gerar mais atenção negativa para o registo do Egipto em termos de direitos humanos, que foi recentemente criticado, entre outras organizações, pelo Departamento de Estado dos Estados Unidos, pelos Repórteres Sem Fronteiras, pela Amnistia Internacional e pela Human Rights Watch”. O governo do Egipto ofereceu-se para receber o Internet Governance Forum das Nações Unidas em 2009. “A libertação imediata de Kareem mostraria à comunidade internacional que o Egipto está disposto a respeitar a liberdade de expressão e que lhe pode ser confiado um papel no desenho do futuro da Internet”, afirmou Mohammed Shouman, o coordenador da Free Kareem Coalition no Canadá.
Kareem está preso em Alexandria, no Egipto, desde Novembro de 2006. Foi-lhe negado o acesso a visitas e à sua própria equipa de defesa legal e a sua família condenou-o publicamente. Dado que os prisioneiros egípcios dependem dos seus familiares para lhes fornecer roupa e comida, Kareem enfrenta condições extremamente duras sem o seu apoio. A Free Kareem Coalition está a liderar esforços para assegurar que roupa e comida são entregues a Kareem enquanto ele aguarda a sua libertação. Donativos para o fundo destinado e estes esforços podem ser feitas via PayPal no site www.FreeKareem.org.
Os apoiantes de Kareem podem também expresser a sua solidariedade nesta causa comprando t-shirts e outros materiais com a inscrição “Free Kareem” no site www.FreeKareem.org. Uma parte de cada venda contribuirá para o fundo de auxílio a Kareem.
O membro da Free Kareem Coalition, Chris Kilmer acrescentou que, “embora as notícias de hoje sejam claramente frustrantes, acreditamos que os esforços continuados dos apoiantes de todo o mundo podem ser decisivos para ajudar o Kareem”.
Contactos da Free Kareem Coalition para os media:
Mohammed Shouman, Coordenador no Canadá
editor@freekareem.orgConstantino Diaz-Duran, Coordenador em Nova Iorque
constantino@freekareem.org
+1.202.288.3328Andrew Perraut, Coordenador em Londres.
andrew.perraut@freekareem.orgA Free Kareem Coalition é uma aliança inter-religiosa de jovens bloggers e estudantes universitários dedicados à defesa dos princípios da liberdade de pensamento e da liberdade de expressão.
Our comment policy will be more strict. It appears to be that many people are taking the chance to bash Kareem rather than express concern for him. This site is not meant to serve as a message board. It’s an informative source about Kareem, and a place for people to receive his constant updates.
I’d like to make it clear that the creators and main supporters of the Free Kareem campaign are Muslim, and we are doing this despite what Kareem said about our religion. Free speech doesn’t mean “speech that you approve of.” It includes criticism.
You may be disgusted at what he said, even angered. That’s okay, so are we! But we will defend with all our might his right to express such opinions, because it is his basic human right that none of you have the right to justify and take away.
Kareem is a good man. Some of us know him personally, and thus we know that he is harmless. If you want to express your dislike for Kareem, please go elsewhere. We have no time to put up with hate mail or disgusted rantings, but we will address the remarks of those who e-mailed us respectfully without insulting any of us or Kareem.
We are preparing a new section on the site to address Muslims who think that Kareem deserves imprisonment merely because of his stance against Islam. That is not the right mentality to have. We should not fear criticism, we should welcome and refute it respectfully. We love our religion and we do not like what Kareem had to say about it, and we also dislike the manner in which he said it in. But as Muslims, it is our duty to make sure that others understand that this isn’t Islam. Islam did not put Kareem behind bars, the Egyptian government did. And Muslims should not approve of the fact that the Egyptian government, and a lot of Arab governments for that matter, are using Islam to hide behind their own faults.
If you truly want to help Kareem, don’t target Islam. Target the Egyptian authorities, and the mentality that Kareem “deserves” this treatment merely for disagreeing with us and our beliefs.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Andrew Sullivan for providing a link to our campaign and encouraging people to sign the petition. We really appreciate all the support we’re getting and hope all of our readers will help us increase awareness regarding Kareem’s case.
And thank you, Tom Palmer, for directing more attention towards this case as well.
If you are new to this website and don’t know the background behind Kareem’s case, be sure to read the press releases concerning this subject, especially this detailed article by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo).
We have just been informed by Laila that Al-Qabas newspaper covered the story of Kareem’s detention. The following is the English translation of the original Arabic article:
Accused of Thinking and Expression
By: Laila Al-Sarraf
November 10, 2006
Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, the Egyptian blogger who is recently arrested by Egyptian authorities, is detained because he dared to think. On his blog, Abdel Kareem wrote with the purpose to liberate the human mind from superstitions and to open the way for logical thinking. This provoked the Egyptian authorities, represented by Moharam Bek Prosecutor Office in Alexandria, to arrest Abdel Kareem and charge him with the crime of expressing his views. He is still detained since Monday November 6.
When and where is the human right to live with dignity getting violated only because of expressing one’s views? When will we stop paying so much to gain our freedom? Kareem is one of the Arab youth who are suffering tyranny, repression, and arbitrary imprisonment for their call for freedom.
