On November 6th, demonstrators around the world will protest against the continued imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, otherwise known as “Kareem Amer,” a 24-year-old student arrested two years ago for criticizing the Egyptian government on his personal website. Protests will take place in Washington DC, Moscow, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Bucharest, Stockholm, London, and a growing number of cities, in hopes of persuading Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against Mr. Soliman, who has reportedly been tortured in prison. November 6, 2008 marks the completion of Kareem’s second year in prison, and this is the fourth time that demonstrators around the world simultaneously protest in an effort to secure his immediate and unconditional release.

Based solely on his blogposts, Soliman is charged with the alleged crimes of “defaming Egypt’s President, incitement to hate Islam, and highlighting inappropriate aspects that harm the reputation of Egypt.” But members of the Free Kareem Coalition argue that imprisoning Kareem has severely harmed Egypt’s international reputation, and has made millions of people around the world question the country’s supposed commitment to free speech and human rights.

Kareem, the first person prosecuted in Egypt for Internet-based journalism, has stated countless times throughout his writing that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. The Internet has made possible the dissemination of these ideals to a global audience. For that reason, Egyptian officials evidently feel threatened by Kareem and others who, like him, are not afraid to speak their minds.

Several Middle Eastern human rights organizations have expressed concern for his life. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, English PEN and Reporters Without Borders have all strongly condemned his arrest. The roster of government officials who have written the Egyptian government on behalf of justice for Kareem continues to grow.

Media may contact Esra’a Al Shafei, Director of the Free Kareem Coalition, by email at director@freekareem.org. More information can also be obtained at www.FreeKareem.org.

In a recent bullet post, English PEN, an organization in support of free speech with a record of working on behalf of persecuted writers around the world, and which Kareem is an Honorary Member of, express their concern for Kareem after being aware of the news from his lawyers that he’s being mistreated:

English PEN is seriously concerned for the well-being of our Egyptian Honorary Member and Internet writer Abdel Kareem Nabeel Suleiman (Kareem Amer) following reports that he has been ill-treated in detention at Borg Alarab prison, where he is serving his four-year sentence.

According to a lawyer from the Arabic Network for Human Rights, who visited Kareem Amer on 30 August 2008, Amer is in a poor state of health and continues to be ill-treated in jail. He must follow the strict rules that apply to political prisoners during visits, although he remains in the criminal prisoners division, where he is treated without any consideration of his rights as a political prisoner. Reports suggest that the prison administration does not allow him to go to the prison yard as others do, and that fellow inmates harass him under orders of the prison administration.

Kareem Amer has previously reported being threatened and ill-treated in prison by officials and by other prisoners, and that he spent time in a disciplinary cell, where he received further beatings and was denied sufficient food and water. The incident followed an allegation of corruption made by Kareem against the prison authorities in late 2007. His lawyers filed a complaint to the Prosecution Office ten months ago. However, no investigation has yet started.

Background:

Kareem Amer was summoned to appear before the office of the Public Prosecutor in Alexandria on 7 November 2006 after posting articles critical of Islam on his web log. He was charged with ‘incitement to hate Muslims’, ‘defaming the President of the Republic’ and ‘insulting Islam’, and was held on renewable two-week detention orders until his trial began on 18 January 2007. He was sentenced to four years in prison on 22 February 2007.

Kareem Amer is a former al-Azhyar University student and is known for his secular views and his critical writings on Islam and Egypt’s highest religious authorities published online.

This is not the first time that Kareem Amer has been detained for his critical writings. He was held for 12 days in October 2005 for his articles on Islam and his coverage of sectarian riots in Alexandria. These articles also led to his dismissal from al-Azhar University in March 2006 after its disciplinary board found him guilty of blasphemy against Islam.

Please send appeals:

• Expressing serious concern at reports that Kareem Amer is being ill-treated while in detention in Borg Alarab prison, urging that they are fully investigated and the reports made public;

• Reminding the Egyptian authorities of their obligations to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Articles 126, 127 and 139 of the Egyptian Criminal Code;

• Seeking assurances of Kareem Amer’s well-being, and calling for his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Egypt is a signatory;

Addresses:

His Excellency Mohammad Hosni Mubarak
President of the Republic of Egypt
Heliopolis
Egypt
Fax: 202 390 1998

His Excellency Cr Mamdouh Muheiddin Marei
Minister of Justice
Magles El Shaab St
Justice Bldg
Cairo
Egypt
Fax: 202 7958103

It may, however, be more effective to send your appeal via the Egyptian diplomatic representative in United Kingdom:

His Excellency Mr Gehad Refaat Madi
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
26 South Street
London
W1K 1DW

Click here to read the official posting.

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.