Online writer puts faith in court system

Nadia Abou el Magd, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 22. 2009 1:31AM UAE / October 21. 2009 9:31PM GMT

Abdel Karim Suleiman, pictured in the back of a police van, refused to tone down his blogs. AFP/ STR

CAIRO // A Cairo court has adjourned until December 22 its final decision on an appeal by a blogger who is serving a four-year jail sentence. In the meantime, his lawyers, in a parallel course of action, are calling for the release of their client on November 5, which would mark his third year in jail.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, known online as Karim Amer, is the only Egyptian blogger to be convicted for his online writings. Other bloggers have been detained for periods of time or harassed by security forces, but not sentenced to prison terms.

One of Amer’s lawyers, Gamal Eid, who is also the director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), said that if the cassation court accepts their appeal, Amer will be set free immediately, his first trial will be annulled and he will be retried by new judges. The appeal had been filed immediately after Amer’s sentencing in February 2007 in the hope that it would have been accepted within six months to one year.

In addition to the appeal, Amer’s lawyers are calling for his release on November 5, as people convicted for minor crimes in Egypt can be considered for release after serving three-quarters of their sentence, especially if their conduct in prison has been good. The decision is up to the interior ministry and the prison authorities.

However, Mr Eid pointed out that securing early release would not clear Amer’s name, while a successful appeal could.

Amer, 24, first came to the attention of Egyptian authorities after he published a series of online entries, or blogs, highly critical of the Muslim role and reaction in deadly sectarian riots in his hometown of Alexandria in 2005. The riots were sparked by a play performed at a Coptic Orthodox Church that Muslims took offence to.

He was arrested by state security in October that year for his posts, which were deemed “anti-religious”, but he was released 12 days later.

Early in 2006, Amer was expelled from the religious Al Azhar University, where he was studying Sharia (Islamic law), for criticising some of its more conservative instructors, writing in his blog that the “professors and sheikhs at Al-Azhar who … stand against anyone who thinks freely” would “end up in the dustbin of history”. He also referred to Al Azhar as “the university of terrorism”.

Al Azhar is the most prominent religious centre in Sunni Islam.

The university’s administrators also filed a complaint against Amer to the public prosecutor’s office, alleging he was “spreading rumours endangering public security” and “defaming President [Hosni] Mubarak”.

In his blog, Amer criticised Mr Mubarak, writing at the time of the presidential elections in 2005: “Let’s pledge allegiance to God’s representative and caliph in Egypt … the symbol of tyranny, Hosni Mubarak. Say goodbye to democracy for me.”

As a result, he was arrested again, in November 2006, and has been in detention since.

In February 2007, a criminal court in Alexandria convicted him of insulting religion and the president, and sentenced him to four years in prison on both charges, three for insulting Al Azhar figures and the Prophet Mohammed and for inciting sectarian strife, and one year for insulting the president. The sentence began retroactively from his detention in November 2006.

There have been several reports and complaints by his lawyers that he has been mistreated in prison.

Mr Eid said he and other lawyers had filed an appeal as soon as Amer was convicted, but that the authorities have failed to consider it two years into his prison term.

Amer’s religious family disowned him after he was arrested, did not attend his trial and have not visited him in prison.

“When he gets out, we have to find him a place to spend the night and stay as he has no home to go back to,” Mr Eid said.

Shahinaz Abdel Salam, a fellow blogger and friend of Amer from Alexandria, had been visiting him in prison but she and Amer’s lawyers were told by prison authorities in April that they were barred from further visits.

Ms Abdel Salam, 31, said Amer seemed strong the last time she saw him, but in a recent letter he revealed his fears to her: “I’m not a criminal,” it read. “I don’t understand why I’m here and I want to get out. Sometimes I think that prison might be better because I know that when I get out, many people would want to kill me.

“Karim was an easy target for state security because of his controversial religious, not political, posts,” Ms Abdel Salam said. “By imprisoning him, they tried to set an example and send all bloggers a message, which didn’t scare us. Even religious bloggers who oppose [Amer’s] views are against his imprisonment.

“I consider myself a moderate Muslim and don’t agree with Karim’s extreme views, but I never told him to tone them down because I believe it’s his right to express his views freely and he shouldn’t be punished for them.”

In a report in April by the Committee to Protect Journalists titled 10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger, Egypt ranked No 10. The report, which mentioned Amer’s case, noted that more than 100 bloggers had been detained in 2008 alone, and although most had been released after short periods, some were held for months.

Most reported mistreatment and “a number have been tortured”, the report said.

nmagd@thenational.ae