Read the full report here.

We would like to correct Spiegel Online in their report about Kareem:

It is well after midnight when Abdel Kareem Sulaiman, 22, gets some uninvited company. Suddenly the door to his apartment bursts open and a squad of Egyptian security police officers storms into the room and arrests the drowsy Sulaiman on the spot.

This is not what happened.

Kareem went to the Prosecution Office with a lawyer, as stated here many times before. Please do not dramatize the situation for whatever purpose, we would like Kareem’s case to remain accurate at all times.

IRIN Middle East: Weekly update of human rights violations in the region:

CAIRO, (IRIN) – In Egypt, Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the sentencing on 31 October of former President Anwar al-Sadat’s nephew, Talaat al-Sadat, after being convicted by a military court of insulting the military and the Republican Guard.

HRW condemned the conviction of al-Sadat, who is a prominent parliamentarian. Al-Sadat’s prosecution and sentence [sends] a chilling message to anyone who dares to raise sensitive issues in Egypt. No one should be tried in a military court or any other court for criticising a public institution or a public official, said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director of the New York-based rights group.

Meanwhile, local NGO Human Rights Info denounced the arrest of a prominent secularist blogger for his views on Egypt’s religious establishment. Alexandrian blogger Abd el-Karim Suleiman, who was arrested on Monday, is being investigated on five charges, which include incitement to hate Islam and spreading malicious rumours that disrupt public security.

We are very concerned that he is going to be charged officially with blasphemy a charge which can carry the death penalty in Egypt, Human Rights Info spokeswoman Dalia Ziada told IRIN.

As this following letter shows, Kareem is still not doing very well. Please keep your thoughts and prayers with him. For the previous 2 letters by Kareem: #1, and #2

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.

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.

This is the second post from Kareem, who writes about his imprisonment conditions and his aspirations for better results. Read it:

من الحجز المدنى بقسم شرطة محرم بك

Egypt: New concerns about freedom of expression

Amnesty International is concerned by the arrest and detention of blogger and former al-Azhar University student Abdel Karim Sulaiman Amer apparently because of his critical writings about Islam and Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities, and the recent imprisonment of Tal’at Sadat, a member of parliament, for “spreading false rumours and insulting the armed forces”. These cases represent a further erosion of freedom of expression in Egypt.

Abdel Karim Sulaiman Amer was summoned to appear before the office of the Public Prosecutor in Maharram Bek district of the city of Alexandria on 7 November following a complaint reportedly made against him by al-Azhar University. He was charged with an array of offences, including “spreading information disruptive of public order”, “incitement to hate Muslims” and “defaming the President of the Republic”. The Public Prosecutor ordered his detention for four days on 7 November, which was later reportedly extended for a further 15 days, to allow further time for investigation.

Abdel Karim Sulaiman Amer was dismissed from al-Azhar University in March 2006 after the university’s disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam. The disciplinary measures were taken against him after he was detained by the Egyptian authorities for 12 days in October 2005 because of his writings about Islam and the sectarian riots which took place in the same month in Alexandria’s Maharram Bek district following reports that a play believed to be anti-Islam was being screened in a Coptic church in the district.

Tal’at Sadat, nephew of the assassinated former Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar Sadat, was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with labour and fined on 31 October after being convicted of defaming the armed forces. On 5 October, the Military Prosecutor General requested that Tal’at Sadat be stripped of his parliamentary immunity to be investigated for defaming the armed forces and for spreading false information. Several days earlier, Tal’at Sadat gave a series of media interviews on the anniversary of the former president’s assassination, and alleged that senior army officers had been implicated in the killing, which was carried out by Islamist soldiers on 6 October 1981. In these interviews he suggested that Egyptian President Husni Mubarak – then vice-president – was also involved. Although a civilian, he was tried and convicted by a military court.

Amnesty International has consistently urged the Egyptian authorities to put an end to the trial of civilians before military courts, from which there is no higher judicial appeal, which violates some of the most fundamental requirements of international law, such as the right to be tried before an independent and impartial court, and the right to appeal to a higher court.

Amnesty International considers Tal’at Sadat to be a prisoner of conscience imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and is calling for his immediate and unconditional release. The organization is awaiting further details of the charges against Abdel Karim Sulaiman Amer but is concerned that he may also be a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted on account of the peaceful expression of his views about Islam and the al-Azhar religous authorities.

Amnesty International is calling on the Egyptian authorities to review or abolish legislation that, in violation of international standards, stipulates prison sentences for acts which constitute nothing more than the exercise of the rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Click here for the article.