Kareem has very recently sent a letter to mutual friend Shahi (blogging at Wa7da Masrya) who will make it available on her blog shortly. The letter will be translated into English within this week and considered for publication in large newspapers which we hope will collaborate with us as Kareem wants this letter to be read by as many people as possible.

Mutual friend Shahinaz received a letter from Kareem, noting:

I just got a letter from Kareem Amer, the envelope was already open, of course they read every single word Kareem is writing but anyway his letter reached me which is the important thing.

Kareem is fine AlhamedLallah (thank God) , I want to thank all the people who sent him letters in his prison supporting him, Kareem said that he got about 6 letters from all over the world.

So keep doing a good job and support him. Kareem says a special hi to all the bloggers and supporters.

We would like thank everyone who took the time to send him letters. You really helped to keep Kareem hopeful and in high spirits.

If you didn’t send Kareem a letter yet, please do so! It’s really making him hang in there during such a difficult time. His prison address may be found here.

Previous letters from Kareem may be found here.

A reader has kindly sent us this sample letter which may be helpful to those planning to keep alerting Egyptian embassies worldwide about Kareem’s case, which we strongly encourage you to do. You may find the relevant information/addresses here. Feel free to use the sample letter below:

[Your name and address]
______________________________________________________________

[Date]

His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Nabil Ismail Fahmy
The Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt
3521 International Court, NW
Washington, DC 20008

Re: Mr. Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman (Kareem Amer)

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

I wish to express my concern regarding the case of Mr. Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman (Kareem Amer). I understand that Mr. Suleiman was imprisoned for the expression of his personal opinions.

I join the many people around the world who have expressed the hope that the Ministry of Justice will favorably review this case, and free Mr. Sulieman. I also add my support to those who have urged that the safety and humane treatment of Mr. Sulieman be ensured. All of these actions will reflect well on the Arab Republic of Egypt.

Thank you very much for considering this matter.

Very truly yours,

[Your name]

This is also available in Word Document for easier editing.

Please keep others aware of Kareem’s case! Let government officials know that he will never be forgotten, and this crime against humanity shall not be dismissed.

A Free Kareem supporter, Gavril Huiber from Romania, shares the following letter:

“On February 20 I wrote to the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest with a request that they intercede on behalf of Kareem, as it would have been the right thing to do. They ignored that request, so I am about to write another.

Please tell Kareem that he is not alone. The whole civilized world is with him and with the good people of Egypt on this.”

Her previous letter:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to request that you intercede on behalf of Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, who is standing trial accused of contempt of the Islamic religion, harming the reputation of Egypt, and inciting to disrupt the peace and to overthrow the regime.

The charges are absurd. The accused is a college student with a blog and the courage to speak his mind. He is not Egypt’s public enemy. He has, in fact, conducted himself as one of your nation’s finest: he has stated that he believes women and men should be treated equally; that Islamic extremism is gravely hurting Arab society; and that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. Those are things to be shouted from rooftops, not grounds for criminal proceedings. Kareem is walking the path of the righteous. Egypt should be proud.

Please do the right thing. It is bad enough that Kareem has now been abandoned by his own family, and that even if the judge will decide to throw out all the charges, he may still be gunned down by some fanatic. Help free Abdul Kareem, and give him adequate protection. No decent Egyptian should live in fear of either his government or his fellow citizens.

Thank you,

Gavril Huiber

If you wish to take similar action, you can find the required information here.

Thanks Gabi for all your efforts. If anyone wishes to share their letters, please e-mail them to us.

For the Arabic readers and bloggers, here is a translation of our letter campaign:

(You may also download the document in word.)

Kareem’s latest letter from prison was published a few days ago in Arabic here, and now Dalia Ziada provides an English translation for the international readers:

“I am concerned that others may stop expressing themselves through blogging in fear of facing the same destiny of mine. I want to clarify that my situation is so special. I was writing with my real name. I refused the idea of hiding my real identity with a pseudonym and preferred to be frank with my self in everything whatever the consequences are. I have some reasons for this; the most important is that we cannot change our society according to our beliefs while covered and frightened.

Criminals, holders of retarded thoughts, and extremists are not ashamed or afraid of talking openly about their ideas. They do not hide behind masks. It is better for us then not to panic and speak plainly, even if guns are pointed to our heads. Others do not hesitate to commit suicide and bomb themselves in favor of their beliefs… Not everyone is committed to agree with my point of view. When people use nicknames, no one will pursuit them because they are too stupid to use information technology. If I did not confess that I am the writer of the articles that put me to trial, they could not do any thing for me. Furthermore, I was a student of Al-Azhar University, which motivated the whole case against me. Not all those who write belong to Al-Azhar like me. There are some more reasons that I do not need to mention now. I do not want to be a reason for people to be afraid of facing the same fate. Certainly, other writers did not face the same fate although they provide writings that are more daring than mine are.”

Please consider joining our letter campaign for Kareem so you can help by interacting with him!

We’d like to announce a new letter campaign for Kareem where supporters will be given the opportunity to directly connect with him. Some of you already have, and have received appreciative responses from Kareem, which is great! But now it’s time for us to make sure that Kareem stays in people’s minds. His most recent letter proved that he is in need of interaction, especially with his worldwide supporters. You are very important to him, and you are the only ones who can truly help him, so you need to take this chance and make an even bigger difference in his life. Get to know him better, and have him know who is behind all this support!

Here is how the campaign will work:

On the 15th of each month, we will all be uniting worldwide in writing supportive letters for Kareem. You will be able to do this in two ways:

- For those with time restrictions, simply contact us with your full name, message to Kareem, and address. We’ll mail it for you. Be sure that the message is long enough for us to mail – ideally it would be no less than 5-7 sentences.

- Send a letter yourself to Kareem using this address.

The latter option increases the chances of Kareem responding to you personally. We leave the decision up to you.

You may ask yourself, “why should I bother doing this?” This is so Kareem feels safe, cared for and loved. He is, after all, an innocent young man whose only crime is bravery and free speech. He deserves and needs our support. Take a few minutes, write a letter, it doesn’t have to be lengthy! Just a supportive pat in the back to encourage him to stay strong.

To help us spread the word about this letter campaign to Kareem, please make a post and announce it on the 15th of each month, starting on this coming 15th of July. Include a copy of your own letter to Kareem for others to see, hopefully your readers will be inspired enough to do the same.

Copy/paste the code here to add this to your blog!

General FAQ about letters:

Q: What language shall I write in?
A: English and Arabic. Kareem understands and writes in both, his English is not fluent but easily understood.

Q: I sent Kareem a letter and he didn’t reply, why not?
A: We can never be sure whether or not Kareem receives some of the letters. Sometimes he confirms it by sending a letter back, other times he can’t send his reply. It’s not easy for a prisoner to have access to the outside, especially foreign, world. It’s very much worth sending him a letter, however. For his sake, please don’t give up on contacting him.

Q: What is Kareem’s address?
A: It’s posted here, and also on our “Write to Kareem!” page. Note: If you saved an earlier version of the address, it has been changed. Double check and make sure you are sending it to the recently updated address instead.

Thanks so much for those willing to do this! You have no idea how much you will be helping Kareem.

Get started now! Grab a banner, write a letter, spread the word, help Kareem, help free speech!

Kareem needs our support and encouragement. He would like to be given the opportunity to interact with his supporters. We strongly encourage you to send a letter to him at the address posted here, until we announce a letter campaign in the near future.

Shahi (blogging as Wa7damasrya) includes in her blog the latest letter she received from Kareem. We will offer a translation here as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you can read about her recent visit to Kareem here.

Dear readers,

For those of you who requested it, below you will find an English translation of Kareem’s 2nd letter from prison, which he wrote in November 13, 2006. You may read the first translated letter here.

Translation credit: Dalia Ziada.

Message from Behind prison walls (#2)

I have been detained for a whole week now. I expected this since long time ago. Usually, I expect the worst in order no to be shocked and subsequently collapse. I can say that I was in high spirits along this period. I did not feel the time passing despite the rarity of entertainment and time-wasting tools. I did my best to waste time by talking to those around me and giving hope to desperate ones. I also read some of the newspapers sent to some prisoners. It is noteworthy that I am the only person detained for a speech case in the whole prison. Most of the accusations range from robbery – all types of robbery – and drug traffic. This made me feel distinguished, despite this means nothing in a prison. In prison, all are equally suffering. Probably my fate is much worse than those colleagues who got accustomed with staying in such places!

The place of provisional detention, where I exist, in Moharram Beik Police station is divided into two floors. The higher floor contains a room for political detainees transferred by State Security Bureau. In the lower floor (underground), there are four rooms; two rooms are for provisional detention upon public prosecution resolution, one room for women, and another room for the prisoners sentenced by the court and awaiting transformation to their final prison.

I spent one whole week in one of the provisional detention rooms before I had – yesterday – to move to the second room, after I suffered many difficulties in dealing with colleague prisoners. They behave in barbarian way, do not respect the privacy of others, and interfere in others’ affairs. I had to limit the amounts of food I take per meal to avoid going to the very dirty bathroom. That is not only because of being unsuitable for human usage, but also because there is no lock to close it when I get in. It is not weird to find more than one person using the bathroom at the same moment. In the very little times I use it, I had to ask some colleague to stand close to the door and prevent any one from getting in until I finish. Apparently, this provoked sarcasm to the extent that they decided to mock me and laugh at me with no regard to my reaction at all. Once I got in the bathroom, I found two others trying to open the door in spite of my will. I could not help screaming until they stopped and closed the door again. I got out of the bathroom with great anger, particularly that I realized that person I asked to stand close the door conspired with them. Therefore, I had to move to the other room, which is much calmer as it includes only ten detainees in comparison to more than thirty in the other room.

I write these words while a sunbeam is stealthily moving into the small calm room that I am staying in now. In the other room, we can only tell what time is by looking at our watches. I spend the whole night yesterday waiting to know if the morning has come. It seems that the sole sunbeam is going to disappear too. It already disappeared. However, the barbed window overlooking on the wide space will tell me the time passing and the time remaining. I missed this in the other room that looks like a mass grave where people are buried alive.

During the last week, I got out of prison twice. The first one was when I went to renovation session. The judge ordered me to be imprisoned for additional fifteen days. The other one was when my name was enlisted among the prisoners to be transformed to Gharbiniat prison in Borg El-Arab. In the last time, we carried our luggage and they packed us in a vehicle with other dozens of prisoners from other police stations. The road took more than one hour before we eventually reach Gharbiniat prison.

We got into prison in a general inhuman atmosphere and insult. We were forced to get undressed except for hiding our body molestation, to process the routine medical examinations. An officer called me and asked me about my accusations. Once I told him, he asked me to wear my civil clothes again in order to be returned to Moharram Beik police station in transformation vehicle.

I saw with my eyes, at that day, how the incoming prisoners are treated. They are insulted severely and some times they are beaten by plastic sticks that make bloody signs on their bodies. It seemed to me like driving a group of sheep to their prisons. This can be a suitable way to deal with humans. It is true that they are guilty. Yet, this does not mean that they are not humans.

I will be seen by the renovation judge on Wednesday 22/11. I am not sure that I will be released or transformed to trial and subsequently face imprisonment. Anyway, I am not afraid of the consequences. I did not commit some regrettable mistake. On the contrary, I am so proud of what I did. No power on Earth can force me to retreat or surrender. I always ask myself when I feel depressed: what did they take from me to regret losing it? Their absolute stupidity made them believe that they took my freedom away because I expressed my views. Did they gave us our freedom from the beginning so they can take it now? Egypt is simply a large prison; I can move with some more freedom within its borders. Yet, this is not the freedom I seek. Instead, I am working on crashing the restrictions of my thought and speech. The most powerful man on earth may not take them away from me unless by killing me.

Here I quote the magical expression of the Egyptian novelist, Ne’amat El-Behiery whom I wish to be cured soon from the monster attacking her body. I quote: “I am not sad. I do not see my self as a piece of meat all what it cares for is to fulfill its sensual needs and animalistic instincts, in order to reproduce my rage into a deficit freedom.”

To all those who support me in my crisis: I wish I can pay your favor back. I owe you many favors, which I will not forget as long as I live.

To my beloved Sahar: When I remember you and your sufferings with the patriarchal society and your patience and persistence to cause some changed in your society, I become more and more strong and I have great hope to cause a general change in the world around me.

To my dear friend Sara: They will not crash me from within as you imagine. Just remember that the strike that will not kill you, will definitely strengthen you.

I end up my letter with hope that it can be published as soon as possible. That is only if I was lucky and some one of my friends visits me soon in this prison.

Abdul Kareem Nabeil Suliman
Monday 13/11/2006
From the civil prison of Moharram Beik Police Station

[Read the letter in Arabic here.]

Click here to download the letter in word document. A PDF version of the letter for printing purposes is also available.

Previous Letters:

● Letter #1
Date written: November 8, 2006
Original (Arabic): HTML
English translation: HTML (Translated by Ismail El-Naggar)

● Letter #2 (in Arabic)
English translation: HTML, PDF
Date written: November 13, 2006 (Translated by Dalia Ziada)

● Letter #3 (in Arabic)
Date written: November 24, 2006

We hope to receive more letters from Kareem shortly.