From RSF:

Reporters Without Borders wrote to French President Nicolas Sarkozy today asking him to intercede on behalf of imprisoned blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman and imprisoned journalist Abd al-Munim Gamal al Din Abd al-Munim when he receives a visit from his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, on 2 August.

“When you met with President Mubarak in April, you said you wanted to pursue the ‘same relationship of friendship and trust’ that he had with your predecessor, Jacques Chirac,” the organisation said in its letter. “You called then for the ‘reinforcement of bilateral relations in all areas.’ This cooperation must be accompanied by new demands for the protection of human rights in Egypt. In particular, there is an urgent need to clearly and openly raise the problem of press freedom, as journalists are often arrested, threatened or attacked there.”

The letter added: “The promise which President Mubarak himself made in 2004 to decriminalise press offences has not been kept. Only defaming civil servants has been decriminalized. Thirty-five press offences continue to be punishable by imprisonment, including publishing inaccurate reports, defaming the president or foreign heads of state, and undermining ‘national institutions’ such as the parliament and the army. Egypt does not hesitate to censor journalists’ articles and websites, towards which President Mubarak displays a particularly disturbing authoritarianism.”

The Reporters Without Borders letter reminded President Sarkozy that Suleiman, better known by the pen name of “Kareem Amer,” was arrested on 6 November 2006 for articles posted on his blog (www.karam903.blogspot.com) in which he criticised Egypt’s leading religious institutions including the Sunni university of Al-Azhar, where he studied law. He was sentenced to three years in prison on 22 February for “inciting hatred of Islam” and insulting the president.

Click here to read full article.

We hope that Egypt will take these concerns very seriously and release our innocent friend Kareem.

On today’s Al Masry Al Youm (Arabic), Dr. Ali Jum’a Mufti explains that God has given the freedom to all humans to alter their faith, and should they do that their fate awaits them with God on Judgment Day. Dr. Mufti uses certain verses within the Holy Quran to support this argument, “whoever wants to believe shall believe and whoever wants to disbelieve may do so,” as well as “you have your religion and we have ours,” and finally “there’s no hatred in religion.”

Dr. Mufti adds that if a person merely rejects Islam, there is no punishment against that and it should be left in the hands of God. It may only involve the judicial body should that person be actually harmful, an argument not in favor of Egypt’s ruling against Kareem Amer. What Kareem went through is a personal struggle between Him and God, and he is free to believe and express whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t preach violence, which Kareem is also innocent of.

Why, then, did Kareem get sentenced to three years in prison for “insulting” Islam, if the Koran specifically notes that he is free to do so and only God reserves the right and power to punish such person for sinning? Why does the Egyptian government take upon the role of God in this case, punishing whoever it wishes in the name of Islam? We at the Free Kareem Coalition respectfully demand a valid justification on the basis of Kareem’s sentence. Where in the Quran is this action supported? More importantly, where are the rest of the Muslim voices to condemn this grave misrepresentation and injustice?

We are Muslims. Our faith teaches us to live and let live. We are not afraid of criticism as it is normal nor should we allow our governments to play the role of God and make decisions that they don’t have the right to do. Our opinions are our own and we are free to express them, should they be against Islam then the decision is up to God to do as He wishes. The role of the government is to protect us, not imprison those they ideologically disagree with.

We kindly ask the Egyptian government to respect our individual freedoms, if not in the name of humanity, then at the very least in the name of Islam!

Read the article in Arabic here.

Mohamed Fadel Fahmy is an Egyptian-Canadian writer/film producer best known for his book, Baghdad Bound: An Interpreter’s Chronicles of the Iraq War, which has been developed into a screenplay and is currently in the Hollywood pipelines.

He has worked as a freelance investigative journalist with The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Star, Al Jazeera English, Dubai TV, and Showtime among others.

He currently works as a delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross specialized in the protection of detainees and civilians.

Recently he has also sent a report to us which features a highly informative interview with Kareem Amer, detailing his earlier days and rough experiences with familial life and blogging.

We feature an excerpt below, with links to download the document further along in the entry:

Kareem Amer’s own words from an audio-recorded interview conducted by Mohamed Fadel Fahmy.

I started blogging because it was a way of expressing my disapproval of many issues in society, specifically the ill treatment of women in the Muslim world. That freedom didn’t last long. I launched my blog in August 2005 then I was arrested two months later on October 26, 2005. I liked the idea of blogging when I first saw a blog called An Egyptian Girl, owned by a girl called Shainaz.

The blog world represents the new media to me. It allows individuals to become news reporters and it is not the government who is in total control of journalism anymore.

I used to write in Cops United (A Christian Coptic online paper). A girlfriend of mine introduced me to their site but I later realized that they are not promoting civil rights like they advertise. They are simply bias towards Christianity. They want to separate the nation and religion. They simply want a religious Egypt just like the Muslim Brotherhood. I only started to write so that I can have a voice. I wanted to feel alive. I did not have any rebellious ideas in my head. It was a form of venting because my problem since I was a kid is that no one ever listened to me, or I couldn’t simply talk to anyone. Blogging has opened doors we could not even dream.

My problem with Islam built up gradually. It was not over night. I do not think I was ever a real Muslim in any way. Not because my birth certificate states that I am a Muslim and not because I was born into a Muslim family do I really have to follow it. These are mandatory identities forced on us from birth. Many people defend Islam and say that it is a peaceful religion. But, I of course studied in Al-Azhar, the oldest and biggest Islamic institute in the world and what I learned there really disgusted me. The oppression of women in the Islamic Sharia (guidelines) is one of my biggest problems with this religion. I do not think I need to go into detail about that. It is obvious.

[....]

On the night of the arrest I was in deep sleep when I heard the loud knocks at 3 am. My mother opened the door. One of the Amn El Dawla (National Security) cops pulled me out of bed and threw me on the floor. He ordered me to put my clothes on then he explained to my mother that they were taking me in. The five other cops dressed in civilian clothes searched the house looking for a computer but I didn’t own one. At first, they were treating me well. When I asked them about our destination, one of them replied, “ten minutes and you will find out.”

As soon as I entered the National Security headquarters, the officer in charge ordered me to face the wall just like we were punished in school. Half an hour later, a different officer approached me from the back and blindfolded my face. He then dragged me and pushed me up four floors to a room where I sat silent on a chair for hours not aware that there was someone in the room watching me.

The blindfold was not tight. Suddenly, I could only see the man’s shoes as he approached me. I then saw his hand and he said, “I want you to tell me everything or I will gradually torture you like there is no tomorrow. “Ok. What do you want to know?” I answered.

“You know,” he replied.

“Because of the last blog?” I asked.

“Yes. The one called ‘The Naked Truth About Islam As I Saw It’.”

The rest of the interview can be found in the following document:

Kareem’s report by Mohamed Fadel Fahmy (Word Document)

It’s also available in PDF format for those who require it.

Moataz El-Fegiery writes in the Lebanon-based regional Daily Star:

Unwilling to remain on the sidelines in the reform debate in the Middle East for the past two years, Arab governments have asserted themselves against civil society activists and reformists, creating a significant rise in the numbers of Arab prisoners of conscience. The return of security issues to the fore once again in the politics of the region, as well as the softening of calls by the international community for freedom and reform, have encouraged Arab regimes in such actions.

Later in the article, Kareem’s case is mentioned:

Egypt has similarly prosecuted journalist Huweida Taha for “publishing false information violating the reputation of the country,” due to her work on torture, as well as blogger Karim Amer and newspaper editor Ibrahim Issa for “insulting the president.”

Read full article here.

The below report from the Daily Star Egypt extensively covers our partnership with the New Youth 4 campaign -

CAIRO: Arab and Chinese youth activists will be joining forces in a new Internet campaign calling for the release of imprisoned Chinese bloggers and demanding greater freedom of expression in China.

The campaign “New Youth 4” received its name after the case of the four young Chinese activists Jin Haike, Xu Wei, Yang Zili and Zhang Honghai, who in 2003 were charged with “subverting state power and the overthrowing of the socialist system” and sentenced to prison for setting up the Internet discussion group the “New Youth Society;” a forum allegedly advocating social and democratic reform.

The Beijing Intermediate People’s Court sentenced the men to long prison terms in spring 2003 ranging between eight to ten years; a verdict that has been subject to strong criticism from international rights groups, including Amnesty International and Committee to Protect Journalists.

The campaign, accessible at www.newyouth4.org, is inspired and hosted by the Free Kareem Coalition — an online project launched by Arab activists in support of the imprisoned Egyptian student blogger Kareem Amer who earlier this year was sentenced to four years in prison for defaming Islam and President Mubarak on his weblog.

“It was from watching the success of freekareem.org that we began to think that we could make a difference here in China. I contacted some friends who knew the people behind Freekareem.org and they seemed to understand at once how important our project in China was,” the New Youth 4 Coordinator who asked to remain anonymous told The Daily Star Egypt in an email interview.

Esra’a Ahmed, director of the Free Kareem Coalition told The Daily Star Egypt that the right to free speech is an “incredibly important cause to fight for,” leading her team to help set up the New Youth 4 only days after receiving the request.

Furthermore, Ahmed emphasized the importance of networking between activist communities in different parts of the world.

“Networking is extremely powerful. Today these Chinese activists need our help, tomorrow we might need theirs. We help each other and that will strengthen our campaigns and hopefully help us achieve our goals,” she said.

Both Egypt and China have come under strong criticism from rights groups for alleged web censorship and crackdowns on the countries’ so-called “cyber dissidents.”

So far in Egypt this year, Alexandrian blogger Kareem Amer has been sentenced to four years in prison for defaming Islam and President Mubarak on his Internet blog while the Brotherhood’s blogger/journalist Abdel Moneim Mahmoud was arrested in Mid-April on what appeared to be rather unclear charges. Rights groups, activists, and the Brotherhood stress that Mahmoud’s detainment was a consequence of his online writings, where he posed criticism towards the Egyptian government.

Most recently, blogger Omar Sharkawy was arrested and detained on June 11 for three days while covering alleged fraud at Egypt’s recent Shoura elections.

In late 2006, Egypt was crowned one of the worlds 13 worst Internet Enemies by Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) or Reporters without borders with the argument that the Egyptian authorities “display an extremely disturbing authoritarianism as regards the Internet.”

In regards to China, RSF refers to the giant in the East in a 2007 report as the “world’s most advanced country in Internet filtering.”

“The authorities carefully monitor technological progress to ensure that no new window of free expression opens up, after initially targeting websites and chat forums, they nowadays concentrate on blogs and video exchange sites. China now has nearly 17 million bloggers. Although it is an enormous number, very few of them dare to tackle sensitive issues, still less criticize government policy. Firstly, because China’s blog tools include filters that block ‘subversive’ word strings. Secondly, because the companies operating these services, both Chinese and foreign, are pressured by the authorities to control content,” RSF stated.

According to RSF figures, 52 persons are currently imprisoned for “expressing themselves too freely online.”

New Youth’s Coordinator added to The Daily Star Egypt that “speaking your mind in China can be a dangerous game.”

Furthermore, New Youth 4 emphasized that while Egypt and China differ greatly from one another in terms of geography, culture, and language, the process of silencing dissent and open discussion is “eerily similar.”

“In the cases of Egypt and China, it appears that we have weak
governments that do not understand that a nation can become stronger
through open dialogue,” they told The Daily Star Egypt.

When asked whether pressure from rights groups and activists can influence the decisions of national governments, Ahmed answers “most definitely,” highlighting the numerous rallies and campaigns organized in several world capitals by the Free Kareem Coalition.

“Thanks to worldwide rallies our team organized, many leaders, and politicians from all over the world quickly gained interest and expressed their concerns regarding Egypt’s human rights abuses,” Ahmed claimed.

New Youth’s 4 Coordinator also emphasized the importance of public pressure, stressing that “public suasion is an incredibly powerful tool.”

“We are not trying to shame the Chinese government (in this campaign). We seek to convince them to look at the case of the four bloggers. So much as hearing from other citizens of the world is very, very helpful in our endeavors,” said the coordinator.

Link to article.

Alexandra Sandels reports on further human rights violations in Egypt, noting that bloggers and activists unite for the sake of freedom of speech within the country:

CAIRO: Bloggers and activists belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and the political opposition joined forces at a rally and conference on the defense of electronic press freedom in Egypt at the Press Syndicate in Downtown Cairo on Wednesday night.

Armed with banners, megaphones, and Egyptian flags chanting slogans like “we are forbidden to speak” and “where is our freedom?” activists staged a pre-event manifestation outside the Press Syndicate, denouncing alleged crackdowns on outspoken web activists by the authorities.

Kareem is also mentioned in the article:

In January this year, Alexandrian student blogger Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison for defaming Islam and President Mubarak on his internet blog.

We would like to correct the above statement by reminding everyone that Kareem was actually sentenced officially on February 22 of this year. His case remains to be a powerful example of a grave attack against freedom of speech in Egypt.

Read the full article on the Daily Star here.

Kareem’s case was recently featured on Scoop by way of an Amnesty press release.

Putting The Boot Into Internet Repression -

Students will be mobilising their communities to seek the release of two cyber-dissidents: – Chinese journalist Shi Tao, currently serving 10 years in prison for sending an e-mail from his Yahoo! Account. (Yahoo! supplied information to the Chinese government that helped to convict Shi Tao.) – Egyptian student blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman (pseudonym Kareem Amer), imprisoned this year for writing a blog criticizing his university and the Egyptian President.

“Amnesty’s worldwide campaign against internet repression, ‘Irrepressible.info’, is a perfect match for our irrepressible students,” says Margaret Taylor. “They are already planning a range of innovative and powerful events, including an action based on rock-climbing and an attempt to symbolically overcome the ‘great firewall of Chin’ that Chinese authorities are erecting around the internet in their country.”

Read the full press release here.

According to today’s Telegraph:

[Amnesty] cited research by an academic study group, the Open Net Initiative, that at least 25 national governments employed filtering technology for censorship.

They included Iran, Burma, and Saudi Arabia but also western-oriented democracies such as India and South Korea.

It also highlighted the fate of Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, a 22-year-old Egyptian blogger, who was sentenced to four years imprisonment in February.

You may read the full article here.

This wouldn’t be happening if we continue to stand up against this injustice and initiate campaigns such as this one directed to free victims of censorship.

Please visit this campaign as well, where we help our Chinese friends to free 4 unfortunate victims of China’s many crimes against free speech.

In his article Walking off the Net, Martin Walker discusses internet censorship and the challenge the internet poses to our authorities. You may read the fascinating article here, where Walker also mentions Kareem, stating:

Governments target not only Web sites but also Internet cafes and individual bloggers like Egypt’s Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, who was imprisoned for four years in February for “insulting Islam” and defaming Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

This is the latest relevant press release we received from Congressman Trent Franks’ office.

May 25, 2007 – Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) launched the first Members’ briefing this week for the bi-partisan Task Force on Religious Freedom, which he co-chairs with Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05). Testifying at the briefing were Harold Hongju Koh, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and labor, and Dean of International Law at Yale Law School, Ambassador John Hanford, U.S. State Department Office of International Religious Freedom, and Nina Shea, Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, among others. The briefing focused on recent religious freedom developments in Egypt, as well as implications and recommendations for U.S. foreign policy in light of Egypt’s poor human rights record and the worsening status of religious freedom.

Congressman Franks stated, “Religious freedom is the cornerstone of human liberty and the hallmark of a free society. I am honored to have had the privilege of hosting the first Members’ briefing of the year for the Task Force on International Religious Freedom, and to have been joined by Representative Aderholt and many other Congressional staff. Recognizing that an assault on religious freedom anywhere threatens the dignity and security of all human beings, we must never cease to be vigilant in guarding the most precious of our human liberties. This Task Force will be a vehicle that will allow us to do just that – to continue advocating policies and affirming the right of every member of the human family to freely worship and live according to the dictates of their own conscience.”

Among the things discussed in the briefing were the plight of the Baha’is, the Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Amer, who was imprisoned for criticizing President Mubarak and insulting Islam on a personal webblog, and the continuing difficulties of members of other religious communities such as the Coptic Christians who face increasingly harsh government regulation.

Click here to download the opening statement of Congressman Trent Franks.