Egypt jails blogger for insulting Islam and President Mubarak

A young Egyptian blogger, Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, has been jailed for four years in Egypt for writing articles which the state claim incite hatred of Islam and insult the Egyptian President.

He is the first blogger in Egypt to stand trial for his writings and his sentence has been roundly condemned by international organisations.

“This sentence is a disgrace,” said Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “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.”

“This sentence sets a chilling precedent in a country where blogs have opened a window for free speech,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Egyptian government should abide by its commitments to uphold free expression and release Sulaiman without delay.”

Amnesty International said in a statement: “This is yet another slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt.” The group considers Suleiman to be a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for peacefully expressing his opinion, it added.

RSF said, “As a result of this conviction, which clearly confirms Egypt’s inclusion in our list of Internet enemies, we call on the United Nations to reject Egypt’s request to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009. After letting Tunisia, another violator of online freedom, host the World Summit on the Information Society, such a choice would completely discredit the UN process for debating the future of the Internet.”

This young man has gone to jail for the crime of expressing his opinion. He is 22 years old.

And, at a time when George Bush claims to be invading other country's in order to export democracy, there has been no governmental criticism of Egypt's actions. Indeed, there has been an almost marked silence of this attack on freedom of speech.

Egypt remains an ally in the War on a Noun whilst carrying out these acts of oppression. This young man has now been disowned by his family and his own father is now calling for his death, which gives some indication of the pressure they must be under. And it highlights the family's fear of association with their one of their own who has fallen out of favour with the authorities.

Again, his crime was expressing his opinion.

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“This heavy sentence is also a slap in the face for the international organisations and governments that support President Mubarak’s policies. It is time the international community took a stand on Egypt’s repeated violations of press freedom and the rights of Internet users,” the RSF statement said. Egypt is on the list of the 13 Internet enemies which RSF compiled in 2006.

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Tags: Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, Egypt, bloggers, freedom of speech