Update 3/5/07 - Reuters has a follow-up story on the dangers of blogging in Egypt. Click here.
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Cliff May reports the following:
Our Moderate Ally in the Middle Eastern [sic]?
Here’s what prolonged diplomatic engagement and about $2 billion a year in aid can achieve:
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) - An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet.
Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to
stand trial in Egypt for his Internet writings. He was convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004. …
"It's a dangerous precedent because it will impact the only free space available now, which is the Internet. The charges were undefined and vague," said a fellow blogger who attended the trial and runs the "Rantings of a Sandmonkey" blog (http://sandmonkey.org/).
"Tell me. What does insulting the president mean? What is the difference between criticizing religion and being in contempt of religion?" he added, asking to remain anonymous. …
Suleiman, a Muslim and a liberal, has not denied writing the articles but said they merely represented his own views. …
One of Suleiman's articles said that al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni Muslim learning, was promoting extreme ideas. Another article, headlined "The Naked Truth of Islam as I Saw it", accused Muslims of savagery during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria in 2005.
He has also described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as "terrorists", and has likened Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt.
"I was hoping that he would get a harsher sentence because he presented to the world a bad image of Egypt. There are things that one should not talk about, like religion and politics. He should have got a 10-year sentence," said lawyer Nizar Habib, who attended the trial as a member of the public.
Me: Egypt also owns Nilesat which continues to satellite broadcast al-Manar: Hezbollah’s TV station — designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Treasury Department because of its direct incitement of terrorism against Americans and Israelis. Al-Manar also is broadcast by Arabsat, a Saudi satellite provider. Eight other satellite providers have stopped broadcasting al-Manar.