Thanks to the help and hard work of Sara H, the campaign is proud to announce a newly launched French version.

Please check it out and subscribe to it here.

More languages coming soon!

We are conducting a podcast where everyone can literally voice their support for Kareem.

If you wish to get included in this podcast (and we highly encourage you to!) please send us a brief MP3 file of you saying supportive things to Kareem and demanding his immediate release (respectfully!) from the Egyptian government.

This can be done in as many languages as possible - not necessarily English.

Please e-mail your file to editor@freekareem.org and spread the word on your own blog/websites in order for us to gather as many voices as possible to help increase awareness on Kareem’s case.

Kareem has been in prison for over a year. Please don’t forget him. Help now in any way that you can!

The good folks behind the Committee to Protect Bloggers have generously helped organize a Twitter day for Kareem which will take place on the 6th of November. If you use twitter, please consider joining us in spreading further awareness on Kareem’s case. You can read all about this event here:

As we mentioned before, we are co-sponsoring a protest on November 6 with FreeKareem. On that date, the Egyptian blogger Kareem will have been unjustly incarcerated for one year, due to communicating his opinions on his blog. There are physical marches and other activities set to coincide with this date. On our end, we are asking everyone to use their Twitter account to talk about Kareem, free speech, imprisoned bloggers and have related conversations for the whole day. We’re offering the badge above that you can download on your blog or site to indicate your belief in free speech for bloggers worldwide and for Kareem in Egypt in particular. (The bluer version is available in our Flickr account in the sidebar.)

When you write about this aspect of the day, please use the tag twitter4kareem.

Go to original post.

Unfortunately, there are many people who claim that this website is either owned, funded, or managed by HAMSA or the American Islamic Congress.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

This is an independent campaign, run solely by a group of students who volunteer their time to blog about, publicize, and run this website and its many activities.

HAMSA provides neither the counseling nor funding for us, but did play a role in discussing Kareem’s situation with media outlets, because they were the first to start a petition for him. But that petition is not part of this website. In fact we have a separate independent petition as well, which actually belongs to this website. This shows that HAMSA and the Free Kareem campaign are not related, in any way, or else we wouldn’t have created a separate petition about it.

This campaign is hosted by Mideast Youth, also completely independent of outside efforts and influences.

As for me, Esra’a, I did this campaign because I consider Kareem to be a good person and a good friend despite disagreeing with everything he wrote about (I’m proudly a Muslim.) That is as far as the reasoning goes for why this campaign exists and why we managed to create a lot of noise with it. Dalia Ziada, despite her activities with HAMSA and AIC, occasionally works on this campaign as she was the person responsible for giving me all of Kareem’s news for publication on this website as well as any relevant translations. This was before her official involvement with AIC, and she did it independently… just another friend helping Kareem out.

As far as our donation goes, contrary to popular belief we are not personally gaining anything from it and it’s quite disgusting to stomach these rumors. The money is handled by Chris Kilmer, a student in New York (also not part of AIC or HAMSA), who will transfer the money to Shahinaz (Wa7damasrya) who will then take the money to Kareem. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that we cannot act upon the money as soon as we get it simply because we need to think of the strategy on exactly how much we should send, where to, and how often. That’s why we took a while to find both a reliable person to handle the money as well as an effective plan, as well as asking Kareem what he wants to do with the finances. We wanted to make sure that we raised enough money before sending the money on a monthly basis. We weren’t using the money to vacation in Hawaii like some people made it sound like. Please do your research before defaming and undermining our work like this.

As far as sending the money to Kareem’s lawyers, this is not pay for such services. The donation option is for Kareem and Kareem only, and HRINFO has neither contacted us about this option nor did they ever reply to our attempts to contact them personally. In any case, they are not entitled to this money. It is meant to keep Kareem as comfortable as possible by sending him basic needs as well as any amount he requests for. If HRINFO is concerned about the donation option - they are more than welcome to contact us, but they have yet to do so. Therefore we cannot be blamed for not being clear enough when people spent more time feeding rumors than to actually research this themselves, by simply calling or e-mailing us about the issues that they don’t find clear enough.

If you would have noticed, for those who actually were responsible enough to contact me and my fellow campaigners, you’d soon realize that any decision went solely by me and was not approved or run by anyone else. That proves that I hold complete responsibility for this campaign, not HAMSA, not AIC, not Bush, not Ghandi. This is independent. It will always be independent, and we will never ever attach this to any other NGO because we want to lead it ourselves the way we see fit. If you care about Kareem you are more than welcome to join us and find out how the management truly works. If not, then please be decent enough not to link us with any organization without having any basis for such claims. Receiving an organization’s occasional help, especially in gaining press contacts, does not mean we are a part of them.

In other words, spare us the rumors, and let’s all focus on freeing Kareem instead.

Read Shahinaz’s post as well for further clarifications.

CPB is back and we are honored to be their sponsors for this very important project. You can read their latest article about Kareem here.

It’s no wonder why we jumped at the opportunity. With Kareem still in prison, and the disappointingly silent regional blogosphere turning a blind eye, thus forgetting the fight for this brave, innocent, and deserving young man, we can anticipate more bloggers being thrown in prison. Our governments are now assured that they can get away with it.

It’s important for our readers to realize that we are not fighting merely for an individual; we are fighting for the rights of everyone within the region to be able to express their opinion in the condition that they do not preach and incite violence or racism (and Kareem did neither.)

A great way to get involved in the fight for the basic right of free speech and blogger freedom is to get involved in the next worldwide rally for Kareem, where supporters from all over the world can spread their concerns directly to the authorities via Egyptian embassies and offices in its various locations.

We just set up a Free Kareem account on Twitter (a new social networking site.) If you use Twitter, please consider following the campaign’s latest updates and activities. The Committee to Protect Bloggers also has an account which you should consider using if you are interested in bloggers worldwide who are in the same position as Kareem.

We also have a Facebook account, and a MySpace one, both of which were set up by helpful volunteers. Please add either or both if you use these services.

We have just added a map feature where people can give shout outs to Kareem from all over the world. Please use it as we will show these records to Kareem if ever the chances arrives so that he knows how global this campaign really is.

Click here and add a short note.

We’ll be using this to mark Kareem’s worldwide rally locations as well.

To those who contacted us claiming that we are representatives or supporters of Faith Freedom, you are mistaken. We are neither.

We realize that Faith Freedom made the following coverage:

Egyptian Blogger Arrested, Expelled From Al Azhar For Exposing The Truth

Dahsyat: Siswa Al Azhar Mengutuk Islam! (Indonesian)

The Jailing Of Abdel Kareem, Egyptian Blogger

Nine Years For Nothing: Egyptian Blogger Nabil Soliman Goes on Trial

Kareem Amer (forum post)

There Is No Deity but the Human Being (featuring the campaign’s translation of his post)

This support for Kareem is not linked to us in any way. They made no contributions whatsoever to this campaign.

This support for Kareem is also aimed not at the promotion of free speech, but rather the destruction of Islam and general disrespect of Muslims, something that we do not support in this campaign. Thus we are not associated with Faith Freedom; and would not like to be. Thank you for understanding.

To repeat ourselves:

The creators and main supporters of the Free Kareem Coalition are Muslim, and we are doing this despite what Kareem said about our religion. Free speech doesn’t mean “speech that you approve of.” It includes criticism.

You may be disgusted at what he said, even angered. That’s okay, so are we! But we will defend with all our might his right to express such opinions, because it is his basic, inalienable human right. We stand by and fully support Kareem through these difficult times and will continue working on this campaign until he is freed.

Instead of attacking us for either reasons:
1) For being Muslim and embracing Islam
2) For supporting Kareem who is against the teachings of Islam

Please be respectful of what we are trying to do here regardless of your backgrounds and biases. We’re doing it in the name of freedom and free speech, not to enforce any ideologies or beliefs.

The Free Kareem website is now fully recovered from the hack that took place a few weeks ago, the toolbar and RSS feeds should now be functioning properly. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused to people who subscribed with us.

We would also like to take this opportunity to express our concern for Yogesh Swami, an activist in India whose friends are supporters of our Free Kareem initiative. Yogesh is currently in critical condition as a result of a major car accident that took place. He’s a Delhi-based social and youth activist. The surgery he will need to undergo is a very serious one, as the injury caused massive blood clots within the brain.

To all friends of Yogesh, especially Sandeep, thank you for supporting our friend Kareem, and for this our support for your friend Yogesh is guaranteed. We will do our best to help you wherever possible.

For more information -

Read the appeal in English (word document) or Hindi (PDF file)

Get well soon Yogesh!

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.