Pages

Friday, February 23, 2007

UPDATE: Egyptian blogger, 'Kareem Amer', sentenced to a 4 year jail term

Another strike against free speech, and one more example of Islamic justice at its finest. A while back I wrote a short post about an Egyptian blogger who had been jailed for writing a blog critical of President Hosni Mubarak and Islam. Well, the verdict is in. According to Reporters Without Borders, Egyptian courts sentenced the young blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (also spelled Soliman and aka Kareem Amer, his blog name) to 4 years in jail! Three for "inciting hatred of Islam" and one for being critical of Mubarak.

Reporters Sans Frontieres slammed the Egyptian government calling the sentence “... a disgrace,” adding that it was "Almost three years ago to the day, President Mubarak promised to abolish prison sentences for press offences. Suleiman’s conviction and sentence is a message of intimidation to the rest of the Egyptian blogosphere, which had emerged in recent years as an effective bulwark against the regime’s authoritarian excesses.”

Promises mean nothing in repressive societies. Never have, never will. There is far too much at stake for those in power.

So, once again, censorship in its most hideous form, rears its ugly head.

7 comments:

Blazingcatfur said...

Hmm makes the Neutron Bomb seem appealing all of a sudden ;)

Strider said...

Makes me feel very grateful that I am an Australian!

Freest country on Earth!

Blazingcatfur said...

Best of luck in your new show, "Break a leg" as they say.

cy21 said...

Hi there,
I love your blog! I also have a Blog.Same template :D :p..... Programming for the web. Are you interested in link exchange?
my blog is:
http://wd-scripts.blogspot.com/

Incognito said...

Thanks BCF! and hmmm.. i think I agree.

Incognito said...

And yes, Strider, your leaders are brave. I also read somewhere that the Aussies have fought alongside the Americans in every modern day war. Thank you from all of us here in the U.S!!
Here's to a totally free, un p.c. world.

Blazingcatfur said...

hey bud, you may want to try this counter- it is free and very detailed, I just signed up and am quite impressed, especially in light of sitemeters increasing unrelabilty.

www.statcounter.com

Very cool, inconspicuos and no I do not get comped in any way for plugging it;)