Despite our efforts to gain their attention and support for Kareem in the past 2 years, the UN has been largely unresponsive. Two years later UN “experts” condemn Kareem’s imprisonment, but where was the UN 2 years ago when we needed them, and why did the UN continue to support and promote Egypt’s place in the Human Rights Council despite knowledge of Kareem’s arrest and other bloggers/activists like him?

From Amnesty:

Experts of the Human Rights Council have concluded that the Egyptian authorities have detained blogger Karim Amer arbitrarily for his online criticisms and for exercising his right to freedom of expression. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) communicated its decision to Amnesty International.

[...]

Karim Amer was sentence in 2007 to four years in prison for writing on his blog criticizing Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities and President Mubarak. Charges against him include “spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country’s reputation”, “incitement to hate Islam” and “defaming the President of the Republic”.

Read full release.

This is the video we created two years ago opposing Egypt’s inclusion in the Human Rights Council:

And our recent video explains why not -

The Free Kareem Coalition strongly objects to the election of Egypt to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on May 17, with 168 votes out of the 192-member General Assembly. The Human Rights Council was formed to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission last year, but the election of countries who themselves abuse human rights should give everyone serious concerns about the legitimacy of the council and its effectiveness to truly help those in need.

A coalition of human-rights groups opposed the election of Egypt, as well as Angola and Qatar (who won appointments) and Belarus (which lost). Before the vote, UN Watch appealed to the countries to release their political prisoners now, lest the watchdog group oppose their candidacies:

“Election to the Council is supposed to be based on the candidate’s ‘contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights and [its] voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto,’ according to the Council’s founding document, General Assembly Resolution 60/251. Once it is a Council member, a country is supposed to ‘uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights’ and ‘fully cooperate with the Council.’”

To elect a country that imprisons bloggers and others simply for exercising their fundamental right of free speech is wrong. However, actions such as the Human Rights Council vote also may embolden that country to continue its crackdowns, as now it has been given legitimacy on the human-rights front in an international forum. And as we know, Egypt was emboldened to begin with as they successfully prosecuted and imprisoned Kareem, then indicated further crackdowns were to come in the verdict’s wake.

Considering the number of votes that Egypt received for its appointment, we also express concern about how many member states are truly educated about the human-rights situation in the country and ask that U.N. members give the issue of Kareem and other political prisoners high priority in future votes.