An article concerning November 6th’s worldwide demonstrations for Kareem has been published on Agoravox:

Il est dangereux d’être bloggeur en Egypte et de critiquer le gouvernement ou la religion. Un jeune étudiant en fait amèrement les frais et est emprisonné depuis deux ans. Un comité de soutien pour sa libération appelle à une manifestation dans différentes capitales et grandes villes dans le monde entier, le 6 novembre prochain.

Read the rest of the article in French here.

[If you are unaware about the worldwide Free Kareem rallies, you may read about it here and here.]

Paris, France: Confirmed
London, UK: Confirmed
Brussels, Belgium: Confirmed
Stockholm, Sweden: Confirmed
Berlin, Germany: Confirmed
Bucharest, Romania: Confirmed
Washington, DC, USA: Confirmed
New York, NY, USA: Confirmed
Rome, Italy: Confirmed
Berne, Switzerland: Confirmed
Rhode Island, USA: Confirmed
Prague, Czech Republic: Being considered
Moscow, Russia: Being considered

We need your help securing more locations! Please get in touch with us for more information.

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 less than a month, Kareem will have spent exactly 2 years in prison. During this time, he has been tortured, denied rights to visitors, had his books taken away from him, and is being generally harrassed by both fellow inmates and prison guards. He is losing his health, and apparently his patience.

Imprisoning him is truly a grave crime, one that the Egyptian government should never get away with easily. Your involvement in a Free Kareem rally will help us effectively convey this message to the ones responsible for unjustly putting Kareem behind bars.

If you are in any of these locations, please plan ahead so that you can attend! We really need you there. All rallies will be taking place either in front of Egyptian Embassies or Consulates. We will be publishing exact addresses and rally organizers’ information when the date nears, so please keep checking back for more information. In the meantime, please be aware of confirmed locations so far and ones that are still being considered.

Paris, France: Confirmed
London, UK: Confirmed
Brussels, Belgium: Confirmed
Stockholm, Sweden: Confirmed
Bucharest, Romania: Confirmed
Rome, Italy: Being considered
Prague, Czech Republic: Being considered
Washington, USA: Being considered
Berlin, Germany: Being considered
Moscow, Russia: Being considered

If your country/city is not yet listed here, PLEASE CONTACT US! We urgently need your assistance in organizing a local Free Kareem rally in front of your Egyptian Embassy or Consulate.

Are you in London?

Join a demonstration in defense of Kareem!

Friday, 22nd of February, 2pm-4pm
Egyptian Embassy,
26 South Street,
Mayfair W1K 1DW

Since his imprisonment, Kareem has spent time in solitary confinement, as well as deliberately put in cells with violent prisoners, beaten, humiliated, and consistently persecuted to abandon his secular beliefs and accept Islam again. His family have disowned him, with his father saying he will happily see his apostate son be killed.

The London division of the worldwide campaign is organised by a pair of London School of Economics students. We are looking forward to receiving all the support people can offer to this campaign.

Contact us to put you through to the organizers.

Letter from Joey Coon concerning the Washington DC rallies for Kareem:

Dear friends,

February 22nd is an important anniversary: the first anniversary of the sentencing and imprisonment of a peaceful Egyptian student for comments on his blog. I’d like to ask you to join friends of free speech in supporting freedom for Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman. People in or around Washington, D.C. can join us at the Egyptian Cultural Office in Washington, D.C. on Friday February 22nd to show support for Kareem and for freedom of speech. Click here to contact me for more details. (A friend has agreed to treat attendees to lunch at Baja Fresh afterwards.)

February 22nd marks one year since Kareem’s sentencing and imprisonment.

Kareem has been defended by many who disagree with his views, but who defend his right to express them. No one should be imprisoned and beaten for blogging. I invite those who live in the Washington, D.C. area to join us for a brief, peaceful and respectful rally. We ask only that you join us during your lunch hour to support Kareem and free expression. Those of you who are interested in signing a petition, providing information on your blog, or writing respectful letters to Egyptian officials, can find other suggestions on how to help Kareem here.

For more information on Kareem, his sentence, how he has suffered, and the campaign to free him, please visit www.freekareem.org.

Sincerely,
Joey Coon

The Free Kareem website has been on a hiatus for a short while as we were very busy planning a set of actions that will be carried out on the 22nd of February. We expect many people around the world to be involved on this day, which is intended to bolster support for Kareem Amer.

Why the 22nd of February?
This is the day that Kareem’s sentence was finalized and announced. You can read all the posts we wrote last February here.

Has he spent one year in prison?
No, Kareem has spent more than a year in prison. As our Kareem counter shows, he has been in prison for 466 days now, since the 6th of November.

How is Kareem doing?
The last letter indicated that Kareem was doing much better than he was in previous months. However, it has been at least 3 weeks since we last heard from him, and we are not sure what could’ve happened since then. We are doing our best to remain in close contact with him, although we are not certain whether or not our letters are actually reaching the intended destination. Close friends will do their best to visit him soon and we hope to write an update concerning his status.

What is a worldwide op-ed day?
We are trying to get as many people as possible, in many different parts of the world, and in as many different languages, to write about Kareem in their local papers (whether it be student papers or internationally distributed and respected papers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NY Times, and more. Op-ed is short for “opinion/editorial,” and authors/journalists who publish articles in such columns tend to be more personal and opinionated than the average report. If we succeed in getting the intended number of papers involved, this will be a very powerful step for the Free Kareem campaign.

Why are you holding a worldwide op-ed day for Kareem?
Our strategy is intended to put Kareem’s story back in the papers. Due to lack of updates, and general lack of awareness, a lot of people seem to have forgotten about Kareem’s case. We are doing our best now to alarm everyone around the world that Egypt cannot be respected if this young man is still being unjustly imprisoned.

What can we do on the 22nd of Feb?
You can involve yourself by posting a message for or about Kareem on your blog, website, journal, or if you’re in the area, attending a rally that will take place in the 3 following locations:
- Paris, France
- London, UK
- Washington DC, USA

We have chosen 3 strategic locations as opposed to conducting a worldwide rally this year. The reason for this is that we are trying to shift our strategy a bit and focus more on media-related events that will put Egypt back on the human rights agenda. We will resume with our worldwide rallies when we feel that the time is more appropriate.

Please contact us if you would like to find out more information concerning these rallies (or our future activities in general.) We are working hard on making this all possible for Kareem and we will soon follow-up with an update.

Today, authors of the IUF Berlin blog write about the rally they held in November 9 in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Berlin:

IUF-berlin organized the Berlin rally, one of many international rallies in support of Kareem Amer an Egyptian blogger who has been imprisoned for expressing his opinions.

the rally was held in front of the Egyptian embassy in Berlin on stauffenberg straße, and wolfgang and i were able to speak with the ambassador and hand over a petition signed by those in attendance at the rally.

for more information about the rallies held around the world and the continuing struggle to help free Kareem and stand in defense of the freedom of speech, see the Free Kareem website.

We would like to take this opportunity to once again thank the great folks at IUF Berlin for a successful and much needed rally.

Erin Wildermuth, the video production manager at Bureaucrash.com, sent us these great videos which they created to help promote Kareem’s cause around the world. Please watch it, favorite it, link to it, or embed it into your own blogs!

The Coalition would like to thank the Bureaucrash team for their amazing and consistent efforts in helping Kareem. They have shown a wonderful and much needed commitment which we appreciate very much!

Many thanks to Miriam Asnes, Constantino and others who showed up to this rally! Here are some pictures:

Miriam writes about the rally:

Free Kareem demonstrators received at Egyptian Consulate, NY

There is a lot for all of us to think about after our very small but controversial demonstration today to ask that Kareem Amer’s sentence be shortened. The most interesting thing that happened was when we went up to the second floor of the set-back building to let the consulate know that we were downstairs. As we prepared to walk out the door, the receptionist motioned to me.

“Would one of you please come and meet with someone?”

Which is how I ended up in the office of Mohammad Khalil, an assistant to the Egyptian consul. He was very polite and wanted to know all the details of Kareem’s case. “What is he charged with?” he asked me in Arabic. “Writing incendiary comments about the president and the religious establishment,” I told him, and then was quick to point out that the Free Kareem campaign isn’t about his views, but about the appropriate response to someone criticizing the government or Islam. He promised to look into the matter and I gave him my email address so he could follow up. This might mean that I will have a very interesting time at border control next time I visit Egypt

However, the argument that the issue is not the content of Kareem’s posts but rather freedom of speech got us into a heated argument on the street. It started quite innocuously; two gentlemen who had been at the consulate on personal business pointed out that I had misspelled the phrase “Utluqu Sirah Kareem Amer” as “Utluqu Sira3 Kareem Amer” (I do so much writing about “Al-sira3 al filistini” that I mistakenly wrote the word for “struggle”.) It turned out that Mr. Spellcheck had taken a personal interest in Kareem’s case and knew all the details. “You know, it was all completely legal, according to the laws. Not an emergency law or anything,” he said. “He got a year for criticizing the president, and okay, this I think is wrong. But criticizing Islam? He is threatening the fabric of society. He is threatening the values that we teach our children. He should be put in jail; this is the law in Egypt.”

We respectfully disagreed, saying that there should not be limits on free speech and that surely he agreed that Islam was powerful and respected enough in Egypt to withstand some dissent. But his comments did bring to light something I didn’t quite realize beforehand as a newbie to the Free Kareem campaign; technically, this is a campaign that is saying that the Egyptian laws by which Kareem was sentenced are unjust and therefore it is a legal reform campaign directed at Egypt. If I am mistaken on this point, please do let me know.

The second gentleman was really a piece of work. He claimed that America was run by “the Jews” and that they were the source of his own personal woes (getting rejected for a license by the school board) as well as America’s foreign policy. “The majority of the businessmen, the majority of the government are Jewish,” he told me. People like this are always in complete disbelief to learn that Jews account for under 2% of the US population.

“This is bad for Egypt,” he yelled at us. “Not at all,” I tried to tell him. “We like Egypt. We know that Egypt wants to respect people’s rights. We’d like to help her do that.”

And then, as usually happens, even the most bigoted and obnoxious heckler sometimes has a point. “If you are standing here for Kareem,” he told us, “then you must also demonstrate for everyone who is experiencing injustice from the government here.” I bowed my head. How many times did I go out and demonstrate against the illegal detentions after 9/11 or the current detainees of my own government in Guantanamo? I’m much more likely to run a program like the Middle East Community Outreach Panel series we founded at UMich than show up with signs and a megaphone. Is that preference or cowardice?

For me, the best moment of the afternoon happened as I left the consulate. The receptionist who had managed to get us an audience with someone on staff stood as I walked out the door.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No, thank you” he said sincerely. I could tell then that he had probably heard of Kareem Amer.

Excellent recap of the rally. Thanks to everyone who was involved.