This week on Listening Post: How the Egyptian government are keeping tabs on internet use, and punishing those who are accused of misusing it.

We have a special report on the case of imprisoned Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer. Jailed in 2006 for, apparently, “inciting hatred of Islam” and “insulting” President Hosni Mubarak, Kareem’s case has thrown into stark relief the power of the state to exert control over new media. And what effect is this case having on cyber dissidents still operating in Egypt?

Kareem was featured on the Listening Post three times in total, this being the third round of coverage:

In Newsbytes, we revisit the case of imprisoned Egyptian blogger, Kareem Amer and the new laws that the Mubarak government is employing to keep tabs on internet users. We report on Ingushetian journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, who was shot in the head whilst in Russian police custody. Finally, still in Russia, we see how prime minister and self-styled Action Man figure, Vladimir Putin, supposedly acted the hero when he shot a predatory Siberian tiger dead.

When Kareem’s friends were denied entry to the prison in order to visit him, we knew that something’s up. Today a report from The Arab Network for Human Rights Information documents the fact that Kareem is being harrassed by both prison guards and other inmates, and is in poor physical condition. The report reads:

The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported today from the “Borg Al-Arab” prison, in the Alexandrian desert, that Kareem Amer, the author and the prisoner for practicing his freedom of expression was prevented from leaving his cell to be exposed to sunlight, in addition to the seizure of some of his books and the ill-treatment he is receiving from his fellow prisoners on orders from the prison administration.

The ANHRI lawyer Rawda Ahmed had already visited Amer in prison yesterday; she was shocked to find him in poor health. She then knew from him that the prison administration has deprived him from going out of his cell to the prison yard, to get exposed to the sun like all other prisoners, besides the harassments by his prison inmates who were incited to do so by the administration. some of his own books were seized from the cell that is always under the administration’s control.

ANHRI’s Legal Aid Unit’s Rawda noticed that Amer suffers double-standard treatment in prison; for example during visits, he is being treated according to the strict rules that apply to political prisoners, however he is being withheld in the division of the criminal prisoners, which means he is being treated like them, and accordingly deprived from all his rights as a political prisoner.

The restriction on Kareem Amer is not just from the Prison’s administration’s side, however it has extended to the Prosecution Office, who have declined his case filing, which his lawyers from the ANHRI has presented ten months ago; since then no investigation has taken place, inspite of having raised this case to the Prosecutor General.

The ANHRI stated “it is hell on its own to be prisonned inside [another form of] prison meanwhile being in jail, he is already a prisoner, what else do they want from him?”

The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) demands that Kareem Amer gets treated like any ordinary prisoner inside the jail, with neither special treatment nor constraints, until the court decides in his appeal, which we hope it will be fair with him, after the trials that he had in both the First degree court and in the court of Appeal.

Additional Information:
Kareem Amer gets tortured in Borg Al-Arab prison

About Kareem Amer, the prisoner for the freedom of Expression and Opinion

We are preparing some events for Kareem and hope that all his supporters worldwide will not give up fighting for his immediate and unconditional release. Please contact us to see how you can take effective action.

Update: Today (Sept. 1) Reporters Without Borders also launched a similarly worded press release condemning his prison conditions.

Alaa Al Aswany is an up and coming Egyptian author, who, in an article detailing his writing career, mentions Kareem briefly as to why young bloggers are at risk in Egypt:

Al Aswany concedes that his success may have given him greater freedom as a writer. “A young blogger could be arrested easily.” He cites Kareem Amer, serving four years in jail for a blog deemed insulting to religion and the president, and his own friend Ibrahim Issa, editor-in-chief of the oppositional daily Al-Dustour, who is facing a six-month prison sentence for speculating on the health of the elderly president. “It’s a pretext - they wanted him in prison by any means.”

Read the full article from The Guardian here.

FREE AMER

A U.S. congressman is calling on Egypt to release a popular human rights blogger from prison.

“Kareem Amer, as he is known on the blogosphere, was sentenced to four years in prison in February 2007 solely for what he wrote on his blog condemning Islamic extremism and the treatment of women,” notes Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican.

The congressman points out that Egypt is one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid and, “We should ensure that the partners of ours of this magnitude are also dedicated to the freedom of expression.”

Read the rest of the article.

In a New York Times article about Wikipedia’s use in Alexandria, Egypt, Noam Cohen writes:

Hanging over the event is the question of Internet freedom in Egypt. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and a bit of a rock star at these conferences, gave a talk about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in the past, he said, largely involved freedom of the press; today, however, with blogs and collaborative projects like Wikipedia, freedom of speech was much more personal.

His talk linked the growth of Wikipedia to a culture of freedom, and, at least indirectly was indicating that Arabic Wikipedia may be hampered by such restrictions. “It is hard to measure the impact of arresting bloggers, as has happened here in Egypt,” he said. He was referring to the case of Abdel Kareem Nabil, a former student at Al Azhar University, was sentenced in 2007 to three years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife, and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Wales said there was no doubt that such arrests had an indirect impact, making the general public more leery of contributing to projects like Wikipedia.

“Kareem Amer,” he said, using the arrested blogger’s pen name, “has become a cause around the world.” He then showed Mr. Nabil’s English Wikipedia page. “Not the best strategy for keeping his ideas out of the public eye.”

You can read the full article here.

Joshua Curry recently wrote this article, where he incorrectly noted:

Iran arrested Kareem Amer for a sophomoric rant against his university and gave him a four-year prison sentence. His lawyers say since then, his teeth have been smashed and he’s beaten regularly.

Iran has nothing to do with Kareem’s case. The government responsible is Egypt’s.

BBC’s “The World” is going to feature a new podcast concerning the upcoming 2-week long letter campaign for Kareem, detailed by Curt from the Committee to Protect Bloggers here.

Curt and I (Esra’a) will be discussing the Flood the Jail with Mail campaign [click here for info] which goes live on Monday, April 7th. We encourage everyone to get involved!

Visit the website and make sure you listen to Friday’s show to learn more about the campaign and Kareem’s situation in general.

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, who has written about Kareem’s case before, calls his readers to participate in our new campaign “Flood the Jail with Mail”. He points out the necessity of international support for Kareem:

The one thing that’s made a big difference for Kareem, his supporters say, has been international attention. Now those supporters are calling for a two week campaign of snail-mail sent to the jail.

The goal is to let Kareem, and his jailers, know that the situation is far from forgotten. Past mail and media coverage have also improved physical conditions in the jail.

To let this campaign be really successful, it is important to let as many people as possible know about it. So if you own a blog, follow Marshall’s example and write about the campaign, tell your friends about Kareem!

The following is the translation of an article I wrote for the online youth magazine of the German weekly “Die Zeit” (The Time), Zuender. It was published three days after the first anniversary of Kareem’s prison sentence, on February 25. Dealing not only with his case, but also with the situation of bloggers in the Middle East in general it is devoted to the memorial of Kareem and was written as a contribution to the worldwide op-ed day campaign.

The original article can be found here.

„We blog, because we believe“

One year ago Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was sent to prison because he had insulted the Islam.

by Simon Columbus

His fingers form the victory sign, but Kareem Amer has not won, on the contrary: On February 22 of the last year, the student of the Al-Azhar University in Cairo was sentenced to an accumulated four years in prison. Three years for allegedly insulting Islam, another year for defaming the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

What had happened? On October 22, 2005 riots against Christian believers occurred in front of a Coptic church in Alexandria. Three people were killed in those days.

Kareem Amer, who’s real name is Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, described the incident in his blog as attacks by thieves and looters – the religious conflict were nothing but an excuse. And he goes on: „put Islam on trial and sentence it and its symbols (…) so that you can be sure that what happened yesterday will never be repeated again.“

Hard words in a country where Islam is the state religion and the Sharia the base of the legislation. Even many of those who are now fighting for Kareem Amer’s release don’t agree with his polemic.

„As Muslims, we certainly do not agree with what he said and the manner in which he said it in“, says Esra’a Al-Shafei from Bahrain, „however we do feel the need to protect his basic human rights for the sake of all of us.“

Therefore Esra’a Al-Shafei has initiated the Campaign „Free Kareem!“. On the Internet, the supporters collect informations about the prisoner and organize worldwide protests.

Kareem Amer is one of many: A rising generation of educated young sons and daughters from the Middle east has claimed the internet as a way of expression. Foaud Al-Farhan, another jailed blogger from Saudi Arabia, says what this generation thinks: „We blog, because we believe we have opinions that deserve to be heard, and minds that should be respected.“

Many of the young bloggers do not write only about politics, but most of them mention political topics again and again. They want to discuss and to exchange themselves, about their lives as well as about the problems of the Near and Middle East.

For Fouad Al-Farhan, this is only possible through forums, social networks and blogs on the internet, because there were no free media or freedom to assemble in the autocratically lead countries of the region.

The current annual report of the non-government organization Reporters without Borders comes to the conclusion that there is no press freedom in any of the Near and Middle Eastern countries: „Flattery is still the best way to keep one’s job and freedom.“

All the more influential have become the young bloggers, who are able to write what they really think. They bring problems to public attention which are ignored by the state-controlled media. Many of the work under nicknames, use anonymizers to protect themselves.

About a dozen detentions and threats of bloggers through Egyptian officers were counted by the Initiative for an Open Arab Net in 2007. Also in the Near and Middle East, the war against terror gives an excuse to legitimate raids and blocks of websites.

Repeatedly, bloggers became victims of political conflicts: Ahmed Al-Omran, one of the most prominent Saudi bloggers, believes that his compatriot Fouad Al-Farhan is arrested as a scapegoat. He had gotten in the middle of a conflict between King Abdullah, who is pressing for reforms, and his conservative officials.

Kareem Amer had a similar fate: Most probably he is detained because the police tried to part the Egyptian blogosphere in Islamist members of the Muslim Brotherhood and liberal reformists.

Kareem Amer was expelled from his family just before he was sent to jail – his father even called for the death sentence. Because Egyptian prisoners depend on their families for their daily needs, Esra’a Al-Shafei and the team of „Free Kareem!“ collect donors for him. In a letter from prison, the detained let them know as a thank: „Prison didn’t change me“.