Below are some photos of the rally that took place in Washington DC in defense of Kareem on the 22nd of February. This is the fourth rally to take place for Kareem in Washington!
Big thanks to Jonathan Blanks for the photos and for making much of this possible! And thanks to everyone who made it through despite the uncooperative weather.
Below is a picture of the very successfull rally that took place for Kareem in New York on Friday, the 22nd of February. Thanks to everyone who made it! Excellent big banners were created for this event.
Many thanks to the Center for Institutional Analysis and Development (CADI) in Romania who made the Bucharest rally possible. Here are some pictures of the rally followed by a great description from Olga Nicoara, one of the core organizers:
These pictures were taken from Belodvin’s blog:
Flyer used to promote the rally:
Message from Olga:
Dear Friends of the Freedom of Speech/Friends of Kareem,
I am writing to inform you about the Bucharest FREE KAREEM rally, organized by CADI on November 9th, from 12 to 14 pm in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania.
We are thankful to the 17 people who gathered with us for the “Protest of Silence” meant to show solidarity with Kareem Amer, the young Egyptian student imprisoned for blogging his opinions on the Egyptian state and the Muslim religion.
CADI presented the message and arguments of the Silent Protesters in a memorandum also undersigned by Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience, Association Liberalism.ro and CISED and delivered it to the Egyptian Ambassador in Bucharest.
Upon arrival on site, the Egyptian Ambassador kindly invited us inside to discuss the problem. For an hour, Horia Terpe, Executive Director of CADI and myself expressed our concerns to the Egyptian Ambassador to Bucharest, Fawzi Mohamed El-Said Gohar. To the best of my memory, this is how I would structure my recollection of the Ambassador’s in reply:
- Kareem has brought a personal and public offense to President Hosni Mubarak – an act evaluated as being a serious crime under the Egyptian civil laws.
- Kareem also committed crime when he criticized Islam on his blog. An offense brought to the Muslim religion and its icons is an open offense to all the Egyptian Muslims and a violation of their rights. As such, Kareem’s actions escape punishment by the Court.
- Kareem also stated falsehood. There are no conflicts between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.
- Egypt is a sovereign state; therefore no outsider has the right to interfere with its laws, religion, public issues, policies, court decisions, etc.
- Nor should they have an interest. We Romanians should be for example concerned about our crowded streets and advocate for better traffic control.
- No one in Egypt or anywhere else is justified to criticize a certain policy or a court decision issued by an Egyptian justice or. Instead, individuals and NGOs have the option to promote legislative change through other means such as party politics.
- Complete freedom of expression would cause total chaos, and social nightmare. The Egyptian lawmakers specifically design limitations/regulations in order to protect the citizens against themselves. Abusive free expression attacks persons and religion.
- There is no doubt regarding the correctness in the judges’ decision as far as Kareem’s case is concerned. Egyptian judge nor can be suspected of corruption.
- CADI’s own act of pressuring is unjustified as we lack sufficient information regarding Kareem’s case. We ought to do more research on Egyptian legislation and Islam and reflect upon it much longer.
At the end of the conversation, His Excellency promised to pass on our message to Cairo and assured us of his openness to discussions in any future event of this kind. We thank him in return - hoping that we made some difference in the direction we sought - and leave you to reflect on this piece of debate that stands behind Egypt’s act.
We shall continue to militate for Kareem and everyone’s right to express their beliefs.
The Coalition will respond to the ambassador’s claims in another post; in the meantime we would like to thank CADI for making their voices heard concerning the grave injustices that Kareem is being put through simply for speaking his mind.
Many thanks to the great efforts of Debi Chakrabarty, James Pugh, and to everyone who showed up to this rally in London! Pictures below, followed by an article detailing the event.
Article by Debi Chakrabarty, the rally’s organizer, and Paul Gunn:
I send this ‘report’ with a very heavy heart…while all the participants would agree that the London rally was relatively ’successful’, we are all tremendously saddened by recent news that Kareem is being physically tortured in prison. Of course, this strengthens our resolve, and makes us hope, even more fervently, that Kareem is freed soon.
The weather may have been cold on Friday afternoon, but the embassy officials were anything but. Although they did close the blinds to the reception area on the ground floor after about 20 minutes, they continued to observe the rally from various windows located on upper floors. Many of them were seen smiling and waving at us from these windows. In fact, some of the male embassy officials seemed to be winking at the (rather attractive) female protesters, which we found more than a little bit odd.
Different individuals, in various parts of the building (and on the street) took numerous pictures of us, from every imaginable angle. We also noticed that there were several security cameras mounted on the front of the Embassy. (I hope that none of the rally participants were hoping to visit Egypt soon!)
Representatives from the London School of Economics, University College London (thank you, Oliver!), the Oxford Hayek Society (thank you, Andrew!), Queen Mary, University of London (thank you, Paul!), IPN (thank you, Caroline!), Amnesty International (LSE student chapter – thank you for helping us publicize the rally!), and the freelance journalism/blogging community (thank you, Helen!) were present.
Other individuals who could not make it to the rally (including representatives from IEA and King’s College, London) assured me that they would be participating in the campaign by writing letters, signing petitions, donating money, and doing whatever else they could to help Kareem regain his freedom.
The first 40 minutes passed without incident – we chanted “Free Kareem!” every time an official entered or exited the building, with little to no response. A few officials walked out and picked up copies of leaflets detailing the media coverage that we had brought along. Pedestrian traffic on the street was minimal, but the few people who did walk by seemed intrigued by our presence. Some asked for some more literature about the case, which we handed out. A few toddlers looked inquisitively at their mothers for clues about what was going on. One of the most memorable moments occurred when a young [presumably] Muslim woman (wearing a hijab) approached us, smiled timidly, made a “thumbs up” sign with both hands, and quietly walked away. We were fairly sure that she knew exactly who Kareem was and why we were there.
After about 40 minutes in the cold (at which point I had to assure the lady to my left that she was not suffering from frost bite… yet), one of the embassy officials – wearing an eye-catching fighter-jet pin on his jacket collar – approached us and asked: “Who is Kareem? Do you know what he wrote? Do you know why he was imprisoned?”
Our IPN representative launched into an eloquent and respectful explanation of what Kareem had written, why we were protesting his imprisonment, and why it would make sense for the Egyptian government to correct the mistake that they had made. The official’s responses were varied and, at times, mind-boggling. At one point, he explained that insulting Islam is a grave sin in Egyptian/Islamic culture (which, he assured us, we could not understand in the secular West), and that accordingly, individuals (especially the young) deserve punishment for disrespectful actions/words. He also claimed that criticism of the President is acceptable, as long as it is civil and as long as the President is allowed to respond to his critics. This left many participants in the rally wondering about how many times President Bush was allowed to ‘respond’ to his rather ‘uncivil’ critics. But we restrained ourselves and decided not to bring America into the debate, which was probably wise. Instead, we responded to these arguments with variations of the phrase that Andrew (from Oxford) had written on his placard: “Criticism is not a Crime!”
What was most galling about his position was his cultural relativism, and his denial of fundamental rights for all people in all places. He seemed to suggest that just as British culture condones the wearing of eye-catchingly short skirts (something that he said he found “offensive”), Egyptian culture condones the punishment of those unlucky enough to be caught saying the wrong thing – and that we ought to ‘tolerate’ that in the way that he tolerated mini-skirt-wearing women in London. We countered the official’s arguments as respectfully as possible, but our protestations that many Egyptians and Muslims supported Kareem’s cause fell on deaf ears. We gently reminded him that Egypt had signed the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, and that article 19 (section 2) of this covenant stated, rather unequivocally: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”. We told him that the international community, as a result, was watching Egypt’s conduct with a critical eye – but he seemed unfazed.
Nonetheless, the official promised us that he would return to his office, read Kareem’s blog again and would consider the issue more fully. We thanked him repeatedly for coming out to speak to us, and we continue to hope that the arguments we made will help influence him and his colleagues to reconsider their position on the case.
The police, who were extremely helpful, were especially impressed at how “well-behaved” we were, and said that they had never seen an official come out to converse with protesters before. In the words of one of the officers, “it must have been the lack of intimidation that invited the embassy official to come down and speak to you. That is the only time that anyone I have spoke to have ever known that to happen.”
We got a piece placed in the LSE student paper (thank you, James!), some coverage on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’, as well as some interest from a Guardian reporter for a follow-up piece. All in all, a satisfactory rally, but as recent reports from Kareem’s lawyers reminds us, this battle is far from won…
Thanks to Lamis Khalilova, board of directors of Amnesty Czech, for making this rally possible!
According to Lamis, “we were invited into the embassy and were given the opportunity to voice our concerns over Kareem’s case and freedom of speech and expression in Egypt.”
Here are some pictures of Friday’s rally!
Thanks to Amnesty International at the Czech Republic and to everyone else who participated in this rally!
Much thanks to the efforts of Pedro Sette and Magno Karl for making this rally possible in Brazil! And special thanks to everybody who showed up.
Here are some pictures!
Thanks again to Pedro, Diogo, and Magno for putting together a great rally.
Many thanks to the assistance of Reporters Without Borders.
Watch the video HERE!
Special thanks goes to our friends at RSF and everyone else who made an effort to make this rally as successful as possible. Thank you!
Many thanks to Jonas Virdalm, Henrik Alexandersson, Henrik Bejke, Magnus Andersson, Rola Brentlin and everyone else who participated in or helped promote the rally in Stockholm, Sweden! Here are some pictures:
Jonas informs us “One of the speakers, Rola Brentlin, had written a letter of protest to the Egyptian Embassy that she gave to the staff at the embassy.”
Thanks to everyone who was involved in this rally, and for making sure that the embassy staff receives the message.
Many thanks to Pieter Cleppe and Philippe De Backer for making this rally possible. According to Philippe:
6 different organisations were involved in the rally, including Jong VLD and LVSV, Jeunes MR and FEL, Jong SPirit and with the support of Amnesty International Belgium.
About 30 people took part in the rally, which was held before the Egyptian embassy in Brussels. We have send out a dutch and French press release, which was picked by our newspaper media.
We would like to thank everyone who helped organize or attended this rally! Here are some pictures:
Thanks to everyone who was involved in this great rally!
Despite the horrible weather, Jessica Wright, Wolfgang Müller and Oliver Knipping from IUF Berlin led a wonderful rally. Thank you very much for all of your efforts!
Pictures below:
Delivering the petition:
Amazing rally made possible by amazing people. THANK YOU!
