Friday, February 23, 2007

Egyptian Blogger Jailed

Colosseum behind bars

We all know that freedom of speech is threatened the world over. In the era of the Bush Administration, one has cause to worry here in the U.S. as well. But recent news reports tell of a young Egyptian blogger, Abdel Karim Suleiman, who has been sentenced to 4 years in prison for blogging his mind.
I am not writing this as breaking news. I will attach links to proper news sites. But the more internet "hits" this news gets the better. Let the world know that free internet speech is important to us all. While we sit here worrying if we may say something too personal on our sites or if we will be getting nasty comments or blog spam, others are fearing imprisonment. I am grateful that I may post criticism of my president and his administration, or even my religion if I choose, without fear of going to jail.
For more information on Mr. Suleiman here are a few links.
CNN
BBC News
To learn more about internet repression and what your post may do to help, try this Amnesty International link to a site called Irrepressible Bloggers
Pajamas Media is another site with a post by a blogger, Sandmonkey, who also posts from Egypt (anonymously). Sounds like a dangerous job.
Pajamas Media also gives a link to this site which I believe is the actual web site being discussed. Most of it is in Arabic which I do not read. This is how the site author describes himself:
"I am down to earth Law student; I look forward to help humanity against all form of discriminations. I am currently studying Law in Al Azhar University. I am looking forward to open up my own human rights activists Law firm, which will include other lawyers who share the same views. Our main goal is to defend the rights of Muslim and Arabic women against all form of discrimination and to stop violent crimes committed on a daily basis in these countries ."
The author is no longer a law student. Unfortunately he was expelled for his statements on his site.

2 comments:

Heather in Beautiful BC said...

Whew - sure makes me feel lucky to live in the West. It's difficult to believe parts of world are like that when we have so many freedoms.

TutleyMutley said...

Thanks for the pointer: i've added Amnesty's irrepressible info to my blog.