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February 28, 2007BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Convicted Egyptian Blogger Appeals Sentence
As noted in this morning's Technology Daily:
Attorneys on Monday appealed the sentencing of an Egyptian blogger who has been ordered to serve three years in prison for insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak online.
AP reports that a court hearing has been scheduled for March 12 to review an appeal of the prison sentence of Abdel Kareem Nabil.
Egyptian government officials have defended his jailing, despite growing concern among human rights groups and the American government. "No one, no matter who he might be, has the right to interfere with Egyptian legal matters or comments on Egypt's decisions," Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said.
Among other things, Nabil, a former law student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, had said his school was "the university of terrorism."
Tech Daily also called attention to two editorials in the mainstream media in defense of Nabil's right to speak freely on his blog. Here are links to and excerpts from the editorials:
-- The Boston Globe: "[T]he heart of free speech must be the inviolate right to offend even the most powerful forces in a society. This is a truth too often forgotten -- not only by autocratic states but also in liberal democracies. Amer the blogger deserves to be defended by democrats everywhere. Astonishingly, Egypt is campaigning to be host of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in 2009, and the world's democracies could start by opposing that bid."
-- The Washington Post: "As a political prisoner, [Nabil] will join Ayman Nour, who was sentenced a year ago on fabricated charges after he ran for president against Mr. Mubarak on a liberal democratic platform. As many as 800 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have also been jailed in the past year. This by a government that continues to be one of the largest recipients in the world of U.S. aid, collecting more than $2 billion a year."
Posted by Danny | 09:35 AM
