Alexandra Sandels, a Cairo-based Swedish journalist, writes about the growing lack of press freedom in Egypt for Menassat:

Despite the freedom of expression boundaries being pushed by the independent press and the blogging community, 2007 witnessed an upsurge in clampdowns on the press and free speech in Egypt.

[...]

Egypt’s decision to sentence 23-year old blogger Kareem Amer to prison in February sparked a fury among the civil society and attracted much unwanted attention from international media. A critic of both the leading Islamic institution al-Azhar and the Egyptian government, Amer was sentenced to a four-year prison sentence for insulting Islam and President Mubarak on his blog. The case marks the first time Egypt refers a blogger to a prison term.

Amer’s lawyer Gamal Eid, who is also the director of the Cairo-based non-governmental organization, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo), stressed that “Kareem crossed the line by criticizing Islam, the President, and the Al-Azhar institution.”

Abdel Hadi suggested that the regime might have sought to “protect its legitimacy” by sentencing Amer, thus “demonstrating that they are tough on those criticizing religion.”

When combined with public activism, blogging is a particularly dangerous activity, according to Eid. In April, security officials at Cairo airport arrested Brotherhood-affiliated journalist and blogger Abdel Moneim Mahmoud as he attempted to travel to Sudan to do reporting on human rights in the Arab world.

Read the full article here.

Recent article in the Arab Times Online about blogging in the Middle East and North Africa highlights Kareem’s case:

But blogs in North Africa are not without risk. Karim Amer, 22, landed four years’ detention last year on charges of criticising Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his blog, Al Azhar.

Read full article here.

Thanks to Olof Jönsson, a Swedish article about Kareem and our campaign for him was featured recently here.

Thanks again to Olof for collaborating with us; it is always a great pleasure to see people determined to help and report on Kareem’s case!

Journalist Magdy Samaan tells Kareem’s story in his latest article for the Daily Star Egypt:

CAIRO: Without a personal computer and through Internet cafés, 22-year-old Al-Azhar University student Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, known as Kareem Amer, created a blog under the name “Kareem Amer.” The blog focused on criticizing Islam, Al-Azhar education and the President.

During sectarian strife in Alexandria he supported the Copts.

But being unconventionally outspoken in a conservative society had its repercussions, especially that he was a student in the top Islamic educational institution.

[...]

While Amer accuses the prison administration of intentionally targeting him – he was put in solitary detention 65 days before being moved to the political prisoners’ section then to criminal – he says his relations with the fellow inmates are fine. “I avoid any theological discussion because it won’t lead anywhere.”

Amer enjoys the support of many international organizations and movements such as Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. A number of activists and bloggers have initiated the “Free Kareem” campaign, whereby they organize demonstrations in front of Egyptian embassies around the world and gather signatures on petitions calling for his release.

Amer didn’t garner the same level of support on a local level.

“Solidarity with Kareem is the basic solidarity with freedom of expression – a right granted for all regardless whether you agree or disagree with their ideas,” said Taha, who’s currently appealing a prison sentence she received for making a documentary about police torture in Egypt.

Negm conveyed, however, Egyptian bloggers’ support to Amer.

“Although I disagree with Kareem regarding his ideology and the means of expression but I think that the only response to opinions are opinions not oppression and limiting freedoms,” Negm said.

“I don’t have a problem with Kareem criticizing my faith, because it isn’t weak faith,” she added. “I think the main reason for imprisoning him is attacking the President. If the government penalizes religious contempt why would it allow websites that express contempt of Christianity? Isn’t Christianity also a religion?”

Read the full article here.

The 16th Reporters Without Borders – Fondation de France prize awarded today [5th of December] in Paris:

The young Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is the laureate in the Cyber-dissident category. The 23-year-old was sentenced to four years in jail for criticism posted on his blog of President Hosni Mubarak and of the Islamist grip on the country’s universities.

Read full report here.

This news has been featured in Le Monde, France’s most prominent newspaper:

RSF récompense le blogueur égyptien Kareem Ader, emprisonné pour quatre ans

Premier blogueur jugé et condamné en Egypte pour ses écrits, le jeune Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, plus connu sous le nom de Kareem Amer, a reçu le prix “Reporters sans frontières (RSF) – Fondation de France” pour l’année 2007 dans la catégorie “cyberdissident”, mercredi 5 décembre.

Read full news article here.

The Christian Science Monitor also reports:

RSF’s cyberdissident laureate was Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, sentenced in February to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The 23-year-old former student at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, sharply criticized conservative Muslims in his blog. His lawyers allege he is being held in solitary confinement and tortured in prison.

Read full article here.

Heise online also contributed a special report on the RSF award ceremony:

Egyptian blogger receives human rights prize:

In Paris, Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was awarded this year’s Human Rights Prize in the category “Internet dissident” by Reporters without Borders and “Fondation de France”. In February, Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, as he is called in real life, was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for publicly criticizing President Hosni Mubarak and the way the country’s universities are strictly operated according to Islam. In his weblog, Amer showed how Mubarak put pressure on religious leaders to support him.

[...]

As Reporters without Borders puts it, the prizes are awarded to those who make a special contribution to freedom of the press and human rights. Each of the four prizes in the categories of journalists, Internet dissident, medium, and organization, include 2500 euros.

Read the full article here.

Read HRINFO’s press release [Arabic] here.

Rawda, Kareem’s lawyer, traveled to France to get the prize on behalf of Kareem.

RSF notes in an urgent press release:

Journalists and bloggers arrested and censored

Reporters Without Borders today strongly condemned the arrest of journalist Hossam el-Hendy at Helwan University, south of Cairo, as “an attempt to intimate all bloggers in Egypt” after officials there reported him to police for taking photos and sending messages about a demonstration on his mobile phone.

El-Hendy, 22, who works for the daily paper Al-Dustour and the website Eshreen (www.20at.com), was covering a 28 November protest that erupted when a speaker at a university conference on information technology said it was important to regulate online activity in Egypt.

The press freedom organisation also deplored the suspension on 21 November of the YouTube account of journalist and blogger Wael Abbas, who had posted scenes of police brutality towards suspects, and of his Yahoo! E-mail account on 29 November.

“Abbas is seen by the country’s bloggers as a key figure who alerts Egyptians to acts of torture,” it said. “If some of his clips are too shocking, YouTube can ask him to remove them, but suspending his account is excessive.” Abbas has suggested a parallel event to the Cairo Film Festival that would award a “golden whip” to the video of the worst example of police torture.

Egypt is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “enemies of Internet freedom.” One blogger, Kareem Amer, 22, is in prison for posting material online and has become a symbol of repression towards the country’s bloggers.

Also relevant:
‘Golden Whip’ for best Egypt torture video

From the video’s description:

We also feature Kareem Amer who on the first anniversary of his imprisonment in an Egyptian jail [yes, he had been imprisoned for blogging - defaming religion and the president] had people all over the world demonstrating for his release – vive la revolucion – and in an attempt to forever stop his blogging activities and to set an example to others, allegedly beat him on the same day. This abuse from a country that purports to value democratic principles such as freedom of the press.

Previously on Menassat:
- Until you change your mind
- Blogging all the way to jail

Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports:

Detainees go on hunger strike in Egyptian prison:

Cairo – A group of 33 detained Egyptians held in the notorious Burj al-Arab prison, more than 320 kilometres north-west of Cairo, have gone on a hunger strike to protest of their mistreatment, according to local rights groups. The detainees are mistreated, terrorized by trained dogs and banned from health care, the Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights claimed in a report released Tuesday.

Some of the detainees belong to the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, a conservative Islamic group at loggerheads with the ruling regime.

Coinciding with this report is another by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders about Burj al-Arab inmate Abdel-Karim Suleiman, a blogger better known by the alias Karim Amer. The report, also published Tuesday, voiced concern about Amer’s health.

Amer’s lawyers had filed a complaint on Monday accusing a prison official “of conspiring to have him mistreated and holding him in solitary confinement.”

Amer was jailed for slamming the ruling regime and lashing out at religious authorities. He was charged with “inciting hatred of Islam” and insulting the head of the state in February.

Amer wrote several letters from prison in which he mentioned being subjected to “physical and moral” torture, according to the report, in addition to being “handcuffed and beaten and then thrown into an isolation cell, where he was given hardly any food or water.”

“I have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” read one of his letters.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also voice their concern for Kareem in a recent article:

“We are shocked by reports that our colleague was brutally assaulted and demand that Egyptian authorities investigate this troubling incident and ensure his safety,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “These allegations are all the more alarming given that Abdel Karim Suleiman should not be in prison in the first place. We once again call on Egyptian authorities to end his unjust imprisonment.”

Read the rest of the article here.

ANSAmed reports, via an RSF press release:

CAIRO, NOVEMBER 20 – A young Egyptian sentenced to four years of imprisonment for an offence against Islam and against President Hosni Mubarak in his blog has been beaten in prison and put into an isolated cell, the organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced today.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a former law student, became in February this year the first case of a sentence in Egypt for having expressed on the Internet his opinions in eight articles written since 2004. RSF said that Suleiman had written in a letter from the prison that he was arrested, beaten and put into an isolated cell with scarce food and water. “I was subjected to a crude, non-humane and degrading treatment,” he denounced in a letter cited by the Paris-based organisation. RSF requested the release of Suleiman, known also as Kareem Amer, detained in the prison of Borg el Arab, near Alexandria. Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which represents Suleiman, affirms in a declaration that a prison guard and another prisoner have beaten the young person, knocking one of his teeth out. In one of the incriminated articles, Suleiman, a moderate Muslim, accused Azhar, the highest instance in Sunni Islam, of propagating extremism. Internet is one of the few means to express disagreement in Egypt, where almost all information organs are controlled by the Government and under a constant threat of repressions. Numerous journalists are on trial for having “offended” Mubarak, under poor health conditions, according to rumours. (ANSAmed).

Link to original article.

Reported today and featured on Reuters:

CAIRO, Nov 20 (Reuters) – An Egyptian blogger serving a 4-year jail term for insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak has been beaten in prison and sent to an isolation cell, rights groups said on Tuesday.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a former law student convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for Internet writings.

The February verdict was widely condemned by human rights groups and bloggers as a dangerous precedent that could limit online freedom in the most populous Arab country.

Reporters without Borders said Suleiman, in letters sent from prison, had complained of being handcuffed and beaten then put into an isolation cell where he received very little food or water.

“I have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” the Paris-based media watchdog quoted Suleiman as saying. The group urged Egypt to release Suleiman, who also goes by the name Kareem Amer. He is being held in Borg el-Arab prison near the northern port city of Alexandria.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, which represents Suleiman, said in a statement that a prison guard and another prisoner beat him while a prison official looked on. The beating caused one of his teeth to be broken.

Later, the group said, Suleiman was sent to a “disciplinary cell” where he was put in handcuffs and leg shackles and beaten again. The group said the beatings resulted from Suleiman “uncovering an act of corruption in the prison” but gave no further details.

An Interior Ministry spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment. The government says it opposes torture and prosecutes abusers if it has evidence of wrongdoing.

The Internet has emerged as a major forum for critics of the Egyptian government to express their views in a country where the state runs large newspapers and main television stations.

Suleiman, a secular-minded Muslim, has not denied writing the articles for which he was convicted, but said they merely represented his own views.

One of Suleiman’s articles said al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni Muslim learning, was promoting extreme ideas. Suleiman has also described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Mohammad as “terrorists” and likened Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt. (Reporting by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Link to original article.