The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest national daily newspaper, weighs in: Young blogger jailed in Egypt; chill envelops online dissent.

Excerpts:

POSTED ON 02/03/07
Young blogger jailed in Egypt; chill envelops online dissent
Four-year prison term given to 22-year-old who attacked radical Islam, Mubarak

CAROLYNNE WHEELER
Special to The Globe and Mail

CAIRO — Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman’s online diary was not so different from the hundreds of blogs run by the hip, young Egyptian intelligentsia railing against the system: A law student who said his goal was to form a human-rights firm, he posted a pledge to defend Arab and Muslim women against discrimination, alongside song lyrics and advertisements against censorship.

But the 22-year-old, who wrote under the name Karim Amer, also made some enemies for his harsh online criticism of radical Islam, for his attacks on the Egyptian President as a “symbol of tyranny,” and for repeated criticism of Alexandria’s Al-Azhar University, where he studied until his expulsion in March.

The Islamic school is highly respected among devout Sunni Muslims; Mr. Suleiman called it the “other face of the coin of al-Qaeda,” and called for it to become a secular institution.

Detained last November and held until his case finally came to trial last week, Mr. Suleiman got just five minutes in the courtroom — long enough for a judge to read out his sentence of four years in prison, three for incitement and insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Islam, and an extra one for defaming President Hosni Mubarak.

It’s a precedent-setting move that has cast a new fear into an otherwise spirited place of free expression for Egyptians, outside the mainstream of state-run newspapers and television.

“The message is really clear: If that is a window that has opened to freedom of expression in this country, we as a government are going to close it,” said Fadi al-Qadi, a Cairo-based regional adviser for Human Rights Watch, among several international organizations to condemn the prison sentence.

Across the Arab and Muslim world, online weblogs have become an increasingly popular forum for political dissent not normally tolerated among state-censored broadcast or print media. Writers report about demonstrations and political happenings given little attention in state-run media, debate issues of democracy and religion, and pick apart conservative social customs.

In Egypt, though, bloggers have also done groundbreaking work revealing police beatings, torture and arrests without cause, by the meticulous documenting of court hearings, first-hand accounts of torture cases and posting of photographs and video of police beatings and physical wounds left on victims, including autopsy pictures and, last year, a video of a bus driver being sodomized in a police station.

[…]

“I think it is a message from the government to us, to slow down a little,” said Mohammed Khaled, whose blog was among the first to have videos of police torture. “But we’ve already crossed the line until we can’t go back. Nobody is going to slow down from the bloggers.”

Mr. Suleiman’s lawyer, Ahmed Seif el-Islam, has promised to appeal, telling news agencies the ruling will “terrify other bloggers and will [have a] negative impact on the freedom of expression in Egypt.”

[...]

“I am worried it will have a chilling effect,” said Alaa Abd el-Fatah, 25, who with his wife Manal runs the manalaa.net blog.

He was detained for six weeks last year after a demonstration organized in part through blogs, but says he is not deterred and believes there are many others like him.

“Egypt has a very strong record of activists not accepting these limitations and struggling against them. From what I see, the number of people who are willing to engage, who are willing to accept the consequences, is growing.”

Read it all here.

We previously announced that Kareem was nominated for one of the Freedom of Expression Awards by Index on Censorship. We were informed of this by an e-mail message from them.

Well, it’s now official: Kareem Amer has been shortlisted for the prestigious Index on Censorship/Hugo Young Award for Journalism 2007: Index Freedom of Expression Awards shortlist announced.

Index on Censorship/Hugo Young Award for Journalism 2007

This award, given in memory of Guardian columnist Hugo Young, goes to a journalist who has shown an outstanding commitment to journalistic integrity in defence of freedom of expression.
• Jayyab Abu Safia (Gaza): Jayyab has received death threats from Islamic fundamentalists for his refusal to stop airing Western music and discussing controversial subjects on his phone-in programme on Gaza FM, the only apolitical station in the region.
• Kareem Amer (Egypt): Kareem Amer is the pseudonym of 22-year old blogger Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, who was recently sentenced to four years imprisonment for criticising Islam and President Mubarak.
• Trevor Ncube (Zimbabwe): Ncube’s tireless work in continuing to run the only independent newspapers in Zimbabwe while under constant attack from the government has been described as ‘incredibly inspiring’. Despite a number of personal attacks, the government has been unable to shut down Trevor’s newspapers or otherwise silence him.
• Carlos Lozano (Colombia): Carlos Lozano is the editor of the only opposition newspaper in Colombia, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. In May 2005 he received a death threat and had a car bomb placed in front of his offices. Carlos now lives under 24-hour armed guard.

These awards will be presented at LSO St Luke’s, London, on 14 March 2007.

Please visit the Index on Censorship Web site and read the profiles of other soldiers of free speech shortlisted for similar awards.

An editorial by The Boston Globe, published on the International Herald Tribune, explains why the Egyptian government and the extremists are suffering from an “acute case of hypersensitivity” toward Kareem’s writings: The blogger and the pharaoh.

The blogger and the pharaoh
The Boston Globe
Published: February 26, 2007

THE WILL to silence free speech is a defining trait of autocratic and dictatorial regimes. The rulers of such states do not merely fear the contagion of dissent, they become so addicted to the flattery of courtiers that they develop a pathological sensitivity to all forms of criticism. Judging by the four-year sentence handed out to a young Egyptian blogger last week — three years for disparaging Islam and one for insulting President Hosni Mubarak — Egypt’s government is suffering from an acute case of hypersensitivity.

The blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil, offended Islamist radicals as well as Egypt’s political rulers with a posting in 2005 that decried anti-Christian riots that year in Alexandria. He described beatings he had witnessed of Egyptian Copts and the looting of Coptic-owned stores. These riots were incited by Islamists complaining that a play staged in a Coptic church insulted their religion.

Writing under the blogonym Kareem Amer, the 22-year-old former law student recounted how Islamist rabble-rousers egged the crowd on with incendiary slogans. He wrote of seeing mobs rampaging through a liquor store owned by a Coptic merchant, stealing bottles of alcohol as well as money from the cash register, but leaving another liquor store owned by a Muslim untouched.

What apparently provoked some Islamists to demand that the blogger be executed was his suggestion that the “brutality, inhumanity, and thievery” he observed during the Alexandria riots owed their origin to “the teaching of Islam by extremists.” In other postings, Amer called Egypt’s famed Islamic university Al-Azhar, from which he had been expelled, “the other face of the coin of Al Qaeda.” And in yet another blog he called Mubarak “the symbol of tyranny.”

Amer was punished for offending both of the major contending forces in the domestic politics of Egypt: the Mubarak regime and its Islamist foes. In anticipation of April parliamentary elections, the government has taken some 300 members of the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood into custody, subjecting many of them to military trials and seeking to dismantle financial networks supplying funds to the Brotherhood. The trial and conviction of the blogger is the regime’s way of killing two birds with one stone: silencing its secular critics while simultaneously making a show of defending Islam.

But the heart of free speech must be the inviolate right to offend even the most powerful forces in a society. This is a truth too often forgotten — not only by autocratic states but also in liberal democracies. Amer the blogger deserves to be defended by democrats everywhere. Astonishingly, Egypt is campaigning to be host of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in 2009, and the world’s democracies could start by opposing that bid.

Previously on the Herald: Jailed for blogging.

The French newspaper of record, Le Monde, has published an editorial on Kareem Amer in its latest weekend supplement (thanks to Claire for the scanned page; Le Monde supplements are not published online):

(Click here for a full-scale image.)

Please contact the Egyptian Embassy and Consulates in France to express your concern for Kareem Amer’s prison sentence for blogging:

General Consulate of Egypt in Marseilles, France – 166, Avenue de Hamburg, 13008 Marseilles. Tel: (33 4) 9125 0404. Fax: (33 4) 9173 7931.

Embassy of Egypt in Paris, France – 56, Avenue d’Iena, 75116 Paris. Tel: (33 1) 5367 8830. Fax: (33 1) 4723 0643.

Consulate of Egypt in Paris, France – 58, Avenue Foch 75116, 16e Paris. Tel: (33 1) 4500 7427, 4500 7710, 4501 9989, 4501 6066. Fax: (33 1) 4500 3528.

British television station Channel 4 reports on Kareem Amer’s imprisonment, and discusses the struggle between Arab bloggers and their leaders in the Middle East.

Warning: Disturbing scenes of tortured Egyptian prisoners is shown in this video.

(If Internet Explorer acts strangely and crashes, as has happened with myself, try watching with Mozilla Firefox.)

Click here to watch Channel 4 News: Egyptian Blogger Jailed

UPDATE: Now on YouTube as well:

An editorial in The Washington Post criticizes the Bush administration for tolerating the Egyptian government’s imprisonment of Kareem for blogging: Blogger on Ice (hat tip: Billy H.).

Blogger on Ice
Once again Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak shows zero tolerance for a secular democratic dissenter.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007; Page A18

THE BUSH administration has tolerated Egypt’s brutal crackdown on domestic dissent and the broader reversal of its democratic spring of 2005 in part because President Hosni Mubarak argues that his adversaries are dangerous Islamic extremists. It’s true that the largest opposition movement in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood; how dangerous it is can be debated. But what is overlooked is that Mr. Mubarak reserves his most relentless repression not for the Islamists — who hold a fifth of the seats in parliament — but for the secular democrats who fight for free elections, a free press, rights for women and religious tolerance.

The latest case in point is a blogger named Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, who was sentenced to four years in prison last week on charges of religious incitement, disrupting public order and “insulting the president.” A brave and provocative 22-year-old student, Mr. Soliman first achieved notice with postings that denounced riots in Alexandria directed at Egypt’s Christian Copt minority. He said the brutality he witnessed was the result of extremist Islamic teachings, in part by his own university, Al-Azhar, which he called “the other face of al-Qaeda.” He compared the prophet Muhammad to Israel’s Ariel Sharon. And he said Mr. Mubarak was a “symbol of tyranny

Setting aside the hyperbole, there was considerable truth in many of the blogger’s charges. Right or wrong, he certainly would seem to deserve the same freedom of speech as Egypt’s government-owned newspapers, which regularly publish vile anti-Semitic screeds. But Mr. Soliman was one of several Egyptian bloggers arrested last year. While others were released after being beaten — and in one case, raped — by police, Mr. Soliman was brought to trial by Mr. Mubarak’s prosecutors in what seemed a clear attempt to freeze what had been a growing space for free expression.

“This verdict sets a legal precedent for prosecuting someone for what they write on the Internet, on charges that are not easily defined or defended against,” wrote another Egyptian blogger known as Sandmonkey. “This could be used to prosecute any blogger the government feels like punishing and serves as a huge blow to freedom of speech in Egypt.”

As a political prisoner, Mr. Soliman will join Ayman Nour, who was sentenced a year ago on fabricated charges after he ran for president against Mr. Mubarak on a liberal democratic platform. As many as 800 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have also been jailed in the past year. This by a government that continues to be one of the largest recipients in the world of U.S. aid, collecting more than $2 billion a year. What do American subsidies support? Not least, the elimination of what would otherwise be the strongest secular democratic movement in the Arab Middle East.

Previously by The Washington Post: The ‘Crime’ Of Blogging In Egypt

Layla Gonzalez, a political freelance writer and the founder of The Hill Chronicles, will be hosting our New York City Coordinator, Constantino Diaz-Duran, tomorrow on her 60-minute radio show.

We encourage you all to tune in. They will be discussing the fate of Kareem Amer, and Layla will also be taking phone calls: (646) 652-4659

When: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 @ 11:00 AM EST (4 PM GMT)

Where: BlowOut with Constantino Diaz-Duran – Free Kareem Jailed Egyptian Blogger

UPDATE (Feb 28, 2007):

You can listen to the show here:

We thank Layla and Constantino for the wonderful show! We are expecting Constantino to be on Layla’s show again in about 6-8 weeks.

In addition to her wonderful article on the Daily News of Los Angeles today, nation/world news columnist Bridget Johnson lists several suggestions on how you can help Kareem, and publishes an open letter to the Egyptian Ambassador to the US:

Suggestions:

• Visit FreeKareem.org. Download the image on the rail and link to the campaign off your own blog or Web site. (As a testament to the thirst for free speech, you’ll see in this post that the creators of the campaign are Muslims who disagreed with what Kareem wrote.)

• Sign the petition for Kareem’s release.

• Sign a petition in Arabic!

• Reporters Without Borders states that Egypt is bucking to host a stage of the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in 2009 (ironically, the country is on the group’s list of 13 Internet enemies). Lobby against Egypt’s inclusion in this event by contacting Nitin Desai, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Internet Governance, at igf@unog.ch. (Mailing address and phone/fax numbers here.)

• Contact the Egyptian Embassy in D.C. to lobby for Kareem: embassy@egyptembdc.org; (202) 895 5400.

• Lobby the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The AP reported that “seconds after he was loaded into the truck and the door closed, an Associated Press reporter heard the sound of a slap from inside the vehicle and a shriek of pain from Nabil.” So use the Human Rights Commission address reserved for urgent matters: tb-petitions@ohchr.org.

Open Letter to Egyptian Ambassador: C’mon, Ambassador, help Kareem!

Ambassador Fahmy,

It is said that Egypt is the cradle of civilization. However, as a young blogger has just been imprisoned in Alexandria for exercising his God-given right of free expression, the world is looking on and wondering just how civilized Egypt, circa 2007, is.

Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, better known by his Internet pseudonym Kareem Amer, simply did what millions of bloggers around the world do every day: Tell us what they see in their corner of the globe. As every man and woman is unique, our interpretations of and opinions on our observations vary widely. Where one person sees salvation, another may see oppression; where one sees goodness, another may see deception. These opinions that are as different as night and day flood the World Wide Web by the minute, weaving a rich tapestry of expression that comprises the face of humanity.

The crimes for which Kareem sits in prison are insulting Islam and insulting President Hosni Mubarek. On his blog, Kareem expressed his wish to become a human-rights lawyer and help Muslim and Arab women battle discrimination. He also denounced what he saw as extremism at his university, opposed what he saw as political repression and decried violence against Coptic Christians. For this, his family has disowned him and his father sought to have him punished under Sharia law.

Let me bring your attention to something else of which the world is standing up and taking notice: The grass-roots coalition to free Kareem consists of many Muslims who disapprove or are even disgusted by the writings of Kareem, but believe so strongly in the inherent right to free expression that they have vociferously taken up the cause. As Voltaire wrote in a 1770 letter, “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”

Egypt should be proud to call such courageous and principled young people its own. Unfortunately, bloggers there must now have to live in fear of facing the same fate as Kareem. You can show the world that Egypt is a modern society where no writer has to live in fear by freeing Kareem now. All the world currently sees is a climate of extremism, where a prosecutor tells the Associated Press that he is “on a jihad” to punish this young man as harshly as possible. You can show the world that instead Egypt will embrace moderation and mercy by telling a young man that he will not have to sit in a cell for four years on account of his beliefs.

By letting Kareem go and vowing to punish no more bloggers on such charges, you will show the world that Egypt still can be the cradle of civilized society.

Thank you for your consideration of this request to work for the pardon of Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman.

Thank you, Bridget Johnson, for helping Kareem and all those who yearn to speak their minds but cannot.

Thanks to Bridget Johnson, a nation/world news columnist at the Daily News of Los Angeles: Imperiled bloggers best hope for free speech in Arab world.

An excerpt:

Back during the Muhammad cartoons controversy, Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit spearheaded the country’s mediation role, urging Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to not prosecute Jyllands-Posten but issue “an official Danish statement underlining the need for and the obligation of respecting all religions.”

When the religious controversy happened in their own nation, though, the Egyptians were more than happy to prosecute, showing little respect for a secularist who voiced disagreement with tenets of the Islamic society.

Egyptian blogger and 22-year-old student Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, who wrote online under the pseudonym “Kareem Amer,” was sentenced to four years in prison last week for “inciting hatred of Islam” and criticizing President Hosni Mubarek. Ironically, this is the same president who three years ago promised to reform the system that punishes journalists for their work.

Prosecutor Mohammed Dawoud accused Kareem of being an “apostate” who “has hurt every Muslim across the world,” reportedly telling The Associated Press, “I want him to get the toughest punishment. I am on a jihad here … If we leave the likes of him without punishment, it will be like a fire that consumes everything.”

The blaze of which he complains consisted of Kareem’s views against what he saw as unchecked radical Islam. Kareem, who wrote of the desire to become a human-rights lawyer to help women in Arabic societies, decried extremism being taught at his university and harshly criticized Muslim attacks on the Coptic Christian population.

The Web site FreeKareem.org was set up by many Muslims who were personally offended by Kareem’s writings but felt they must stand up for free expression.

“You may be disgusted at what he said, even angered,” wrote the campaign founders in a recent post. “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 … take away.”

Kareem’s imprisonment will not be the last, unless the freedom-loving global community takes a stand and says, “We’re not willing to live like that!”

So what action should be taken? First, Egypt is bucking to host a stage of the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in 2009. Unless Kareem is freed and press rights guaranteed, the U.N. should thumb its nose at Egypt’s inclusion.

Everyone should also send a letter protesting Kareem’s imprisonment to the Egyptian Embassy, embassy@egyptembdc.org, and the White House should lobby directly to Mubarek on Kareem’s behalf. And, last but not least, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights should immediately get involved to free Kareem – perhaps this sketchy U.N. body can finally earn its keep.

True democracy in the Arab world starts with these brave bloggers. Turn our backs on Kareem, and we turn our backs on everything for which we’ve been fighting.

Read it all here.

Thank you Bridget!

At the International Herald Tribune: Egyptian blogger’s lawyers appeal his 4 years prison sentence (hat tip: Renée).

Important note: The appeal can only decrease Kareem Amer’s sentence term. Even if he wins the appeal, he will not be immediately released.

Egyptian blogger’s lawyers appeal his 4 years prison sentence

The Associated Press
Published: February 26, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt: Lawyers for an Egyptian blogger convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt’s president filed an appeal Monday.

Abdel Kareem Nabil, a former student at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, had been a vocal secularist and sharp critic of conservative Muslims in his blog. He often lashed out at Al-Azhar — the most prominent religious center in Sunni Islam — calling it “the university of terrorism” and accusing it of encouraging extremism.

One of Nabil’s lawyers Rawda Ahmed said an appeal was filed Monday and a court hearing was set for March 12.

A criminal court in Alexandria, Nabil’s hometown, has issued its four year’s verdict on Thursday. The conviction has brought a flood of condemnations from international and Egyptian human rights groups, as well as from fellow bloggers [Thank you —ed.]. Washington also has said it was concerned about the verdict and sentence.

But Egyptian authorities have staunchly defended the court’s decision.

“No one, no matter who he might be, has the right to interfere with Egyptian legal matters or comments on Egypt’s decisions,” Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement on Friday.

Judge Ayman al-Akazi sentenced Nabil, 22, to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Nabil, who has called himself a secular Muslim, did not react as the verdict was read. His religious family didn’t attend any of the trial sessions.

Egypt, a top U.S. ally in the Mideast, arrested a number of bloggers last year, most of them for connections to the pro-democracy reform movement. Nabil was put on trial while other bloggers were freed — a sign of the sensitivity of his writings on religion.

Nabil, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, was an unusually scathing critic of conservative Muslims. His frequent attacks on Al-Azhar, where he was a law student, led the university to expel him in March, then push prosecutors to bring him to trial.